Cooking Show

A TV cooking show is a television program that presents the preparation of food, in a kitchen on the studio set. The host of the show, often a celebrity chef, prepares one or more dishes over the course of the program, taking the viewing audience through the food's preparation and showing all intermediate stages of cooking. These shows are often intended to be at least partly educational, as the host teaches the viewing audience how to prepare different meals; however, some cooking shows (such as Iron Chef or Junior Masterchef) are intended simply for entertainment.

While rarely achieving top ratings, cooking shows have been a popular staple of daytime TV programming since the earliest days of television. They are generally very inexpensive to produce, making them an economically easy way for a TV station to fill a half-hour (or sometimes 60 minute) TV episode.

A number of cooking shows have run for many seasons, especially when they are sponsored by local TV stations or by public broadcasting. Many of the more popular cooking shows have had flamboyant hosts whose unique personalities have made them into celebrities.

Famous cooking shows include:

  • La cocina de Karlos Arguiñano (Karlos Arguiñano)
  • 30 Minute Meals (Rachael Ray)
  • America's Test Kitchen
  • List of America's Test Kitchen episodes
  • Barefoot Contessa (Ina Garten)
  • Capital Cooking (Lauren DeSantis)
  • Celebrity Cooks
  • Chim Pai Bon Pai or Tasting and Grumbling (Samak Sundaravej)
  • The Cookin' Cajun
  • David Rocco's Dolce Vita
  • Dining Downunder (Vic Cherikoff and Benjamin Christie)
  • Emeril Live (Emeril Lagasse)
  • Hot Kitchen (Wendy Lincoln)
  • MasterChef (Gordon Ramsay, Graham Elliot, Joe Bastianich)
  • Mexico: One Plate at a Time with Rick Bayless
  • New Scandinavian Cooking
  • The F-Word (Gordon Ramsay)
  • The French Chef (Julia Child)
  • The Frugal Gourmet (Jeff Smith)
  • The Galloping Gourmet (Graham Kerr)
  • Good Eats (Alton Brown)
  • Great Chefs
  • Hell's Kitchen (UK) (Gordon Ramsay)
  • Hell's Kitchen (U.S.) (Gordon Ramsay)
  • Hippy Gourmet
  • Iron Chef
  • Iron Chef America
  • Joe's Kitchen (YouTube)
  • The Naked Chef (Jamie Oliver)
  • Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares (Gordon Ramsay)
  • Kitchen Nightmares (Gordon Ramsay)
  • Ready Steady Cook
  • So Good
  • Top Chef
  • Two Fat Ladies
  • Wok with Yan (Stephen Yan)
  • Yan Can Cook (Martin Yan)

The cable TV channel Food Network has showcased many cooking shows.

Famous quotes containing the words cooking and/or show:

    “For the writer, there is nothing quite like having someone say that he or she understands, that you have reached them and affected them with what you have written. It is the feeling early humans must have experienced when the firelight first overcame the darkness of the cave. It is the communal cooking pot, the Street, all over again. It is our need to know we are not alone.”
    —Virginia Hamilton (b. 1936)

    “I think “taste” is a social concept and not an artistic one. I’m willing to show good taste, if I can, in somebody else’s living room, but our reading life is too short for a writer to be in any way polite. Since his words enter into another’s brain in silence and intimacy, he should be as honest and explicit as we are with ourselves.”
    —John Updike (b. 1932)