Should presenters on cookery shows be fat?

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I was watching Masterchef briefly today and I noticed that none of the presenters on the show were fat. They all looked very slim and had personal trainers. I think this is a travesty.

How can you know if they really enjoy their food and really like eating if they're not fat? They make it look clinical, as if it's only a job. And the other Australian bloke on Masterchef (John Torode - the Australian chap who is now British) looks like a thin sack of nothingness with a cocaine habit.

What is up with television executives? I vote for the Adam Richman style of presenting. Someone who clearly likes his scran and isn't afraid to take you on a journey he probably wanted to do anyway but lets you tag along.

As a professional fine dining cook for about 20 years, I can tell you straight off that the myth "never trust a skinny chef" is indeed, a myth. And an indisious one at that.

Good cooks are scrawny because they work their tails off for 14 hour shifts in hot hot kitchens. It is like a pro sport, lots of running, speed is crucial. Fat chefs are one of two things: either (a) lazy, making others do the work, or (b) pencil pushers who do the finances but don't cook the food (who are likely to be (a) as well).

#2, most cooks are adrenaline junkies, so when they are not working they are doing something strenuous like biking or mountain climbing.

My last job, sole chef at a lakeside resort cafe, I worked full tilt from 5:30am until 3-7pm 5 days a week, then put in another 4 hours on my "day off," and my other day off I rode my bike ~40 miles to get groceries. I ate 5-6 meals a day, and that was just enough food to keep me from losing weight from mass caloric burn.

Who said I wanted a chef? I just want someone who looks like he enjoys his food.

What about Michael Winner? I know the guy acts like a complete tool but I don't want someone who looks like he's Mr Hyperactive. It makes us tubbies look bad.

I don't know if their fatness has any connection to their chef skills, but I'm always in favor of seeing more fatasses on TV.

There used to be a show on the Food Network called Two Fat Ladies, but it was cancelled because one of them died.

Um...seriously? Perhaps you should watch Masterlazycritic instead, hmm? And this "Michael Winner" fellow...a British food critic, indeed. Altogether not unlike having a French military advisor.

You're unfamiliar with Masterchef. Fair enough.

There are two permanent judges, John Torode and Gregg Wallace, though neither addresses the viewer directly. Instead information is conveyed in a voiceover by India Fisher. The new series airs five nights a week for eight weeks, consisting of six weeks of heats and quarter-finals, with six contestants emerging to compete against one another over the final two weeks to select a winner.

In each of the first six weeks, there are four heats and a quarter-final. Six contestants enter each heat, with one quarter-finalist emerging from each of the four heats, and these four quarter-finalists compete for a semi-final place, so that over the first six weeks, six semi-finalists emerge. In 2010, the judges were given more flexibility, allowing them to promote more than one contestant to the quarter-finals, or in one instance, none at all.

So there don't have to be chefs as judges/presenters although they generally are.



Food in the UK is often pretty good these days. Perhaps you should come here and I shall dispel your myths about British cooking. (In fact, I've had worse food in Malta than in the UK.)

I think it's important that they are.

I grew up on British food, my stepfather is from rural Durham, near Barnard Castle. Admittedly his food was much better than my mum's (she couldn't boil a hot dog.) But I have little doubt that British cooking has improved in the last couple decades, how could it not?

But in general, as a professional, I despise cooking shows on the tele. Especially those with time trials, such as Iron Chef. Most good food take a very long time to do properly, something that no television presenter is going to show you. They want to make you think that everything can be breezed together in a snap. Pandering to the typical watcher's lust for convenience.

Bringing celebrity chefs onto the shows just makes them worse. A "chef" is a manager. They make the schedule, do advertising promotion, place orders for produce and so on. They are master manipulators, superb at terrifying cooks into keeping busy. They rarely cook or have good cooking skills. I'd watch a show with a "Master Sous Chef" in a heartbeat. At least then I wouldn't have to watch someone abusing their knife or encouraging people to chop their fingers off with their incompetent knife technique.

Let's take "carmelized onions," for example. A sublime preparation that has become sought after to the point of debasement. Carmelizing onions properly takes about 6 hours ... I do it in 14 typically. Most cooks, even in a "nice" restaurant will do it in a single hour. The carbohydrates in the onions do not turn into sweet sugars in that amount of time, rather they darken by carbonization. Are you really going to watch a TV show where they have the camera on a pan of onions for 6 hours? Does the "chef" ever say "ok, now stir it once every 10 minutes for the next 6-14 hours?"

In the Masterchef show, do they get to put their veal stock on the stove at an evaporate for 48 hours, do they reduce it to a demi glace in no less than 12 hours? The primary reason fine dining restaurants exist is because people don't have that kind of time to devote to their food at home. I am inherently suspicious of any "chef" that panders to the a convenience craving audience.

ok, I found a vid.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjckqAU8IkM[/youtube]

Um....

Re: English food, beans with breakfast actually sounds pretty good, but you would have to threaten my nutsack with a cheese grater to get me to eat that "blood sausage" stuff.

I rather love blood pudding, truth be told.

You seriously don't like black pudding? What's wrong with you, man?!

Saying food show presenters should be fat is like saying wine aficionados should be alcoholics. It's quite possible to enjoy good food without eating to excess, or to eat more and exercise to keep the weight off.

I don't see any problem with that either as long as they can hold down a job and live a respectable-enough life.