There was recently a spat between a cable company in a large city and the provider of some of its channels.
Several channels were removed from the cable line up, but the one that people were most up in arms about losing was the cooking channel.
Even people who do not do a lot of cooking themselves love to watch shows where other people prepare food.
At one point in time, cooking shows were the domain of public television.
They usually would find someone who was a cook book author or who had taught some cooking classes and would give them a show.
In the days before wide spread access to cable television, these shows provided the first glimpse of food from different cultures.
One half hour would feature a guy in a bib apron making Cajun food like gumbo and jambalaya.
The next half hour would be a different guy with a heavy accent showing people what a wok was.
After that was a woman making Italian dishes she learned from her grandmother.
There were not a lot of choices in cooking shows, but there was a decent variety in the types of cuisine they presented.
Later cable television became widely available and now instead of twelve channels, you had forty then eighty then hundreds of channels to choose from.
All these channels meant more content was needed.
Cooking shows were a good, cheap option.
There are restaurants all over the country with chefs that no one had ever heard of who could be recruited and put on television.
Networks would take practically anyone in chef pants and put them on the air.
With so many cooking shows, many of them started to blend together.
Different shows would show variations of the same dishes with a lot of focus on foods the viewer could make at home.
There were more shows to choose from, but each needed something to tell it apart from the others.
Enter the celebrity chef.
The increase in mass media meant that a review of a restaurant in New York might be read by someone in Los Angeles.
The names of the chefs in these restaurants became as publicized as the restaurants themselves, with the most famous chefs often being associated with several eateries.
Most of us will never eat food personally prepared by any of theses celebrities in chef coats, but we heard about them and wanted to see what they were preparing.
Now instead of a little known cook in a studio kitchen, shows had a famous cook preparing food in front of a studio audience.
The great man might not cook for you, but you could follow his example and make his gourmet food in your own kitchen.
Now cooking shows are evolving again.
Sure there are still a lot of shows focusing on the preparation of food, but a number of these are about making fantastical creations instead of things you can make at home.
There is also a sharp increase in competition shows which pit chefs against each other or the host against some foreign food that is considered disgusting by our culture.
It will be interesting to see what comes after this extreme cooking fad.
Several channels were removed from the cable line up, but the one that people were most up in arms about losing was the cooking channel.
Even people who do not do a lot of cooking themselves love to watch shows where other people prepare food.
At one point in time, cooking shows were the domain of public television.
They usually would find someone who was a cook book author or who had taught some cooking classes and would give them a show.
In the days before wide spread access to cable television, these shows provided the first glimpse of food from different cultures.
One half hour would feature a guy in a bib apron making Cajun food like gumbo and jambalaya.
The next half hour would be a different guy with a heavy accent showing people what a wok was.
After that was a woman making Italian dishes she learned from her grandmother.
There were not a lot of choices in cooking shows, but there was a decent variety in the types of cuisine they presented.
Later cable television became widely available and now instead of twelve channels, you had forty then eighty then hundreds of channels to choose from.
All these channels meant more content was needed.
Cooking shows were a good, cheap option.
There are restaurants all over the country with chefs that no one had ever heard of who could be recruited and put on television.
Networks would take practically anyone in chef pants and put them on the air.
With so many cooking shows, many of them started to blend together.
Different shows would show variations of the same dishes with a lot of focus on foods the viewer could make at home.
There were more shows to choose from, but each needed something to tell it apart from the others.
Enter the celebrity chef.
The increase in mass media meant that a review of a restaurant in New York might be read by someone in Los Angeles.
The names of the chefs in these restaurants became as publicized as the restaurants themselves, with the most famous chefs often being associated with several eateries.
Most of us will never eat food personally prepared by any of theses celebrities in chef coats, but we heard about them and wanted to see what they were preparing.
Now instead of a little known cook in a studio kitchen, shows had a famous cook preparing food in front of a studio audience.
The great man might not cook for you, but you could follow his example and make his gourmet food in your own kitchen.
Now cooking shows are evolving again.
Sure there are still a lot of shows focusing on the preparation of food, but a number of these are about making fantastical creations instead of things you can make at home.
There is also a sharp increase in competition shows which pit chefs against each other or the host against some foreign food that is considered disgusting by our culture.
It will be interesting to see what comes after this extreme cooking fad.