Cooking Shows

gk Abitur 2010‑I Topic 2

Can coo­king shows chan­ge our eating habits for the better?

Ich hät­te die­se Fra­ge rund­her­um ver­neint, bzw. stark ein­ge­schränkt („only very few peo­p­le actual­ly pro­fit from such programmes“).

Title

Wie so oft bekommt man schö­ne Über­schrif­ten durch die Ver­än­de­rung von Sprich­wör­tern (doc):

Con­stant Cooking

Easier Wat­ched Than Done

Easier Eaten Than Done

Food Is in the Eye of the Beholder

The Road to Hell Is Paved with Coo­king Shows

Varie­ty Is the Spi­ce of Good Food

If at First You Can’t Cook

Gather Ye Vegetables

And Prepa­re the Healthiest

Worth Coo­king Well

Crying over Bur­ned Rice

You Can Cook Your Meal And Eat It

Intro­duc­tion

histo­ry: in the 1990s Alfred Bio­lek star­ted the first coo­king show on Ger­man TV, today ubiquitous

exam­p­le of absurd­ly com­pli­ca­ted reci­pe or dish / ques­ti­on ari­ses: Can shows whe­re such meals are pre­pared real­ly chan­ge anybody’s eating habits?

jud­ging the num­ber of shows one could draw the con­clu­si­on that peo­p­le enjoy coo­king / sad­ly rea­li­ty is com­ple­te­ly dif­fe­rent: more and more peo­p­le obe­se / ques­ti­on: Can coo­king show chan­ge our eating habits for the better?

Main part

Nega­ti­ve:

• recipes far too dif­fi­cult, too many (expen­si­ve) ingre­di­ents needed
• a lot of peo­p­le are far too igno­rant / can’t cook even the simp­lest dis­hes to bene­fit from tho­se shows
• peo­p­le don’t have the time to prepa­re all tho­se com­pli­ca­ted recipes
• vain chefs only want to pro­mo­te their pro­ducts (books, DVDs etc.)
• just wat­ching some­thing pas­si­ve­ly doesn’t chan­ge anything

Posi­ti­ve:

• makes peo­p­le awa­re of the importance of healt­hy food / makes them rea­li­se that it is not that dif­fi­cult to prepare
• a lot of peo­p­le need celebs / role models to chan­ge their lives
• see­ing sth. can be the first to actual­ly doing sth.
• get new ide­as / recipes to escape from nut­ri­tio­nal routine

Con­clu­si­on

Nega­ti­ve: In my opi­ni­on coo­king shows are mono­to­no­us / bor­ing and should be abo­lished as soon as possible.

Posi­ti­ve: In my opi­ni­on inte­res­t­ing / moti­vat­ing, I’m loo­king for­ward to Sarah Wie­ner / Lafer / Mäl­zer / alfre­dis­si­mo to get new ide­as and try out some­thing unusual

Pro­po­sal: coo­king as school sub­ject (cf. Jamie Oli­vers initiatives)

Wenn man im Haupt­teil geschrie­ben hat, dass die Shows gar nichts ver­än­dern kön­nen, weil die Rezep­te viel zu kom­pli­ziert sind und vie­le Leu­te ja die ein­fachs­ten Din­ge heut­zu­ta­ge nicht mehr kön­nen, könn­te man auch mit ein biss­chen Sati­re aufhören:

If coo­king shows real­ly wan­ted to impro­ve our eating habits they would have to be much simp­ler. The­re should be a new show cal­led “Coo­king for Dum­mies” whe­re Jamie Oli­ver shows the audi­ence how to pour water into a pot and make it boil. After that he explains how to use a pair of scis­sors to open a pla­s­tic bag. Final­ly he demons­tra­tes how to cook spa­ghet­ti, open a can of toma­to sau­ce and heat its contents.