Flick across any TV channel — local, national or international, and you will unmistakably find a cookery show! The kitchen has come a long way from its primitive, sweaty, sooty, grimy, functional workplace to a stage of performing art. The kitchen is also no longer the domain of mothers, maids and house mistresses. Kitchen space has become more democratic over the years. Everybody is welcome — young, old, male, female, professionals, amateurs, poets, police, painters, actors, players, lawyers, singers you name them and they have all performed on this Broadway of baking and cooking.
You see them in the professional outfits of chefs, in casual kurtas and skirts, in gorgeous gowns and beautiful Benares saris, in formals and even in sports gear, alone or chaperoned by the smart compeers or glamorous celebrities of the corporate or silver screen world. They sing, they dance, they recite, they act, they crack jokes or share memorable moments of their lives during the intervals of chopping, steaming, frying or grilling — marinating high culture with popular culinary art.
All these shows irrespective of their being on local, national or international channels are fairly popular and enjoy respectable TRPs. Kitchens cut across clutter, kitchens connect. The most busy housewives, working women, dutiful husbands, accomplished bachelors, bespectacled dadajis and bemused daadis all watch these shows with different degrees of interest and attention. Many times even vegetarians watch the process of preparing a meat dish with rapt attention. If your product/brand has even the remotest connection with the kitchen put your ads in the cookery show and rest assured you will get a sizeable viewership.
How did it all happen? When did it happen? And why has this happened? Only a couple of decades ago the kitchen was out of bounds for everybody else except mothers and home makers. They entered this sacred space like priestesses at the altar. It was their magic domain. A male member’s duty would end with bringing the ingredients to the kitchen door. They were not interested in knowing what was happening inside; because the scene inside the kitchen was anything but glamorous. Choking smoke, oil smudges, flying flour, the whirr of the exhaust and the whistle of the pressure cooker had all the ingredients of a Dante’s inferno. In short the kitchen was the labour room of mouth watering creations. And men by nature have left labour to their better halves and have celebrated what the women have delivered.
Yet that was not the end of the story. Things change, stories evolve, plots take new turns and cookery and the kitchen were no exception to this law of evolution.
As the joint family structure crumbled, women started taking bolder strides into the male world, managing home and office. Old, elaborate traditional recipes were now desperately out of sync. So were the proponents of them — mothers, dadimas and mothers-in-law. Brands and gadgets jumped in to fill the gap; the media took on the role of the new cooking coach and elevated cooking from a daily chore to an exciting serial. Cooking became a fashion statement. Ads started telling the husband that if he was not cooking he was not the complete man. Soon, hubby cooking and cool mom playing with the kids (ITC ready to eat foods ad) became the new image of a perfect Sunday.
And cookery shows, as represented through the eye of the camera, created a sweatless spectacle of feasts. Gone was all the smoke thanks to efficient chimneys and the ferocity of frying was tamed by shining, silent ovens. Shots of fresh vegetables all diced and chopped wended their way into clean glass bowls and teflon-coated pans. Even ordinary cooking ingredients like oil, sugar and spices began to be introduced like the cast of a drama with close-up spotlight shots.
Cookery shows in a way carry on the trend of peeling the ordinariness off our daily drudgery of cooking and transforming this into a five star act. There was a time when the Sanjeev Kapoors of the world used to cook on such shows but today they are at best chief guests or judges.
Cookery shows have an element of discovery and surprise; they bring to the fore the unsung culinary skills of those people who are successful in fields other than cooking. As shows they are complete dishes in themselves. They do not leave anything to the “to be continued” format. They are free of past legacies and future expectations. They narrate, educate, demonstrate and finally reward the viewer in 20 minutes flat. There is a cogent transaction of skills between the performer and the spectators — the recipe empowers the recipients.
No wonder reality shows based on cooking have grown in popularity across the world. The most popular one — Master Chef has broken rating records in two of the world’s biggest markets— the UK and Australia. Master Chef is not just a TV show, it has become a cultural phenomena.
The soon to come Indian version is even more dramatic because it goes a step further. The grand prize will be a restaurant in the winner’s name!
Cookery shows have already made waves on the bigger screen. A Meryl Streep and Amy Adams starrer Julie and Julia went on to receive 27 awards and nominations at different film festivals including a nomination for the Academy Awards.
The screen play was based on two true stories: My Life in France, Julia Child’s autobiography and a memoir by Julie Powell documenting online her daily experiences of cooking each of the 524 recipes in Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking.
A culinary legend (Julia Child) provides a frustrated office worker (Julie Powell) with a new recipe for life in Julie and Julia. That’s where the power of cookery shows probably lies. They not only tell you how to make your food taste better they also say that if you have the passion for cooking you can add a new flavour to your life and to the world around. And that’s a recipe worth talking about!
The writer is vice-
president, Consumer Insight & HFD (Human Futures Development), McCann Erickson India. He can be reached at kishore. chakraborti@mccann.com