Chef Appeal
21
up in New England. I also think of Elay’s embrace of the Southwestern states of
America, where this fair-skinned redhead of Irish descent from New York can’t
cook outside on a grill without burning himself.
Another significant chef persona: the bon vivant. Above all, chefs on
television, whether in the kitchen or out, appear to be missionaries of “the good
life.” The central ritual of this religion is consumption. The tagline for Wolfgang
Puck’s Food Network program. Cooking Class, is “Live, Love, and Eat!”
Lagasse knows that his live audiences will cheer more vociferously the heavier
he lays on the portions and the more of every ingredient he throws into a pot,
especially if that ingredient is “kicked up”—meaning, loaded with spice, fat,
sugar, or booze. “Pork Fat Rules!” is one of his favorite on-air lines and he sells
it, among other consumer-evangelistic sayings, on a variety of merchandise.
Lagasse didn’t get cast for the living-well-is-the-best-revenge-themed movie
Last Holiday at random. He’s the ultimate ve^-sayer, oozing the kind of
permissiveness that could knock nearly anyone off a diet. Though he is the most
broadly popular of these examples, he is not the only one to constantly
communicate how much better life is lived with indulgence. Pork fat. Buttery
pastry. Confit. 0-toro. Tniffle oil. They all push it. In the field, as in the kitchen,
the key to selling what they’re pushing is the convention known as the tasting.
This is the money shot of the food porn business.
On occasion, but only on occasion, chefs are portrayed as diet
conscious, like George Stella in his Low Carb and Lovin’ It or the Calorie
Commando Juan-Carlos Cruz, both on the Food Network. But these shows are
marginalized on the schedule and the chefs are continually straining themselves
to come up with substitutional recipes and to convince us that they are just as
delectable as their full-fat, full-sugar, and full-carb versions. Also, sometimes
the chef comes across as a politically-correct consumer, supportive of organic
products and small-scale independent purveyors using sustainable methods, but
the message of “enlightened” consumption is not consistent across the chef-TV
spectrum, and even foods made from environmentalist methods are presented as
desirable at least as much for their supposedly richer flavors as for their
planetary benefits.
No wonder. All of the chef-consumer personae flatter by mirroring the
values of their audiences. The chef as connoisseur, adventurer, and advocate of
multiculturalism each exemplify their fans’ respect for education and
appreciation of cultural diversity. Florida’s study of the ethos of the “creative
class” identifies precisely these values. He is not alone in pointing out their
significance among those who comprise the elites of post-1960s America. David
Brooks in Bobos in Paradise and Joseph Epstein of Snobbeiy: The American
Version would agree. Both trace the contemporary American elites’ tendency to
subscribe to the ideals of a “meritocracy,” which means valuing the acquisition
and display of education-based social capital as opposed to mainly displays of
inherited class privilege, and being open to cultural difference rather than
perpetuating what Epstein argues is the no-longer-relevant “WASPocracy.”