Food: Talent vs. Training

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Talent vs. Training
Sunday, December 24, 2006

I feel so embarrassed. I completely missed the entire cooking phenomenon that is Rachael Ray. I am not totally surprised since I rarely watch cooking shows and talk shows were banned from by viewing list long ago. By chance, I learned of Rachael Ray and the impact she has made on the television and cookbook scene. While her shows are extremely popular, they are also the subject of intense criticism in culinary circles. Apparently, many think Ms. Ray does not have the culinary expertise nor the training to justify her enormous success. Since she is criticized for being a self taught cook, and I am a self taught cook, her story interested me. I decided to do a little research and find out why this particular food show host inspires such strident criticism of her success and her recipes.

If you are as oblivious to Rachael Ray as I was, I will briefly fill you in on her background. Ms. Rays' family owned restaurants in the Cape Cod area and her mother managed restaurants in upstate New York. She literally grew up in restaurants. Ms. Ray followed her families' footsteps and found employment in restaurant management and food buying. She was instrumental in helping start up Agata and Valentina, a gourmet marketplace in New York City. Later, Ms. Ray helped manage pubs and restaurants at the Sagamore Resort in her home town, Lake George. She became the food buyer and chef at the gourmet market, Cowan and Lobel, in Albany, New York. It was during her tenure at Cowan and Lobel that her television career began.

While serving as food buyer and chef for Cowan and Lobel, Ms. Ray began teaching cooking classes entitled " 30 Minute Meals". A local television station began to air these cooking classes and by 2001, Ms. Ray was on the Food Network. She hosts four shows for the Food Network including; 30 Minute Meals, $ 40 a Day, Inside Dish and Rachael Ray's Tasty Travels. She has published numerous best selling cookbooks and her popularity has inspired a talk show backed by Harpo Productions.

It would appear to be the " local girl done good" story Americans love. Why then does Ms. Ray command such strong criticism from the culinary community. She is a bit girlish and casual about her recipes. She laughs, uses nicknames for sandwiches, and describes ingredient amounts in terms of "pinch". Her presentation skills may not serve for the culinary crowd but if her popularity is any indication, it sells to the public. In the land of television, it is the public that really matters. Her style does not appeal to me but I do not watch cooking shows any longer. Emeril and his ilk present their egos along with their recipes and I've had my fill of stuffed ego. Iron Chef is t0o odd though their final product was normally interesting. On the whole I would rather cook than watch cooking shows.

Ms. Rays' background seems to be a source of criticism. It is claimed she does not have the culinary training nor the quality of recipes for a cooking show. I find this criticism absurd. She may not have a degree from a culinary institute, but she has real life experience not only as a chef but also in restaurant management and gourmet food purchasing. Skills such as bulk food preparation, quality food assessment , economy of scale and delivery of a finished product are all taught in real restaurant work. She may have even picked up a cooking skill or two. Actual restaurant work teaches you that even good restaurants cut corners. The green beans on your plate may be fresh or they may be frozen and ready to heat and serve. The baked goods may be outsourced or made in house. The chicken may be purchased already cut and the French fries may come in a bag. The key to effective restaurant management is deciding where to cut corners and where to spend more time. Of course all of these efforts are focused on creating a delicious meal that can be put before your patron in a reasonable time; Say, thirty minutes. These are lessons professional cooks, or should I call them chefs, learn in real restaurants serving real clients and Ms. Ray has spent time in the trenches learning these lessons.

So the final criticism of Ms. Ray appears to be her recipes. A quick review of the lastest recipes on the Food Network website reveal easy to make interesting dishes. I guess the culinary crowd is really addressing the level of her cooking and the level of restaurants where she learned her trade. To focus on this level of criticism, I need to digress from Ms. Ray and focus on the world of Fine Dining, or what I will call " Haute cuisine".

Haute cuisine is not merely gourmet cooking. Gourmet cooking means different things to different people and I have eaten at the table of more than one gourmet cook and not had a fine dining experience. I am talking about professional chefs who cater to the fine dining crowd; this is haute cuisine.

It may surprise many who have private chefs and only dine in the best restaurants that they have rarefied taste. Haute cuisine is an acquired taste as is fine wine and aged scotch. Many of the dishes created by renowned chefs do not appeal to the tastes of your average American. Sophisticated food combinations and unusual ingredients require an exposure to fine dining to appreciate. Love of fine dining takes time and exposure to haute cuisine to develop. Five star restaurants, or those resturants seeking five stars, are where most of us develop a taste for interesting food, but due to the cost and the availability of these restaurants few Americans can pursue this hobby. Creating the food at home is another option, but haute cuisine is not inexpensive to prepare even at home and a certain level of culinary skill is needed to create the dish as it is meant to be.

This is not to say the typical American does not love good food. Americans love good food and their definition of what qualifies as delicious expands every day. However the following example, involving chocolate cake, will serve to illustrate my point. Most people actually enjoy a cake made from a boxed mix and decorated with store bought icing. There are good cake mixes, but nothing compares to a homemade chocolate cake, made with real chocolate and butter. I have found that even if you make the effort to make a chocolate decadence cake, only the chocolate connoisseur in the crowd will appreciate it. Most individuals will find the cake too rich or too challenging for their tastes. They have not spent the time developing an appreciation for chocolate, this cake does not spark familiar responses in their brain. A good boxed cake would appeal to a greater percentage of the crowd and result in a pleasurable rather than learning experience for the greater number of people. It makes sense to make the boxed cake mix unless you know your audience is filled with chocolate connoisseurs.

The haute cuisine crowd has forgotten how rarefied their world really is. It is because Rachael Ray has not forgotton how normal people really cook and live, that she is so popular. I enjoy fine dining and quite frankly Ms. Rays' shows would not appeal to me even if I was inspired to watch a cooking show. I am interested in haute cuisine and how to create a fine dining experience in my home. To accomplish this I really must experiment in my own kitchen and be prepared to fail. I have attended classes before but never made even one of the items presented nor ever used the cookbook I dutifully bought. The cooking class made me more aware of what I could not do rather then what I can do. I have learned what I can do, and creating haute cuisine in my own kitchen is something I can do without a degree.

Ms. Ray provides that inspiration to her viewers. Her recipes are not plain but neither are they too fancy. They bring an interesting touch to America's kitchens. I think the criticism of Ms. Ray is without merit. She may not make the culinary crowd happy but she makes a lot of Americans happy. It may be time the culinary crowd remembers they are an acquired taste and ostrich ( a culinary crowd favorite for awhile) has never really taken off in this country. But who am I? To them I am merely another cooking wannabe who can only strive to make delicious food but without their training will be unable to do so. An untelevised Rachael Ray. I guess they do not want an invitation to dinner.

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