Enough about celebrity and tantrums. Tom Doorleywants to see food programmes that are actually about, well, food
Has Nigella Lawson gone too far this time? Is she just rubbing our noses in it? Yes, entertaining can be effortless, even for very busy people. But something tells me that it's easier for very busy people who are doing their umpteenth TV series with the assistance of a crew of researchers and gofers. Not that Ms Lawson lacks sincerity. She is as passionate about food as she is good at delivering smouldering looks to camera. But her passion and sincerity would come across a bit more convincingly if she were writing a cookery column for the local paper rather than having herself carefully packaged for television.
As far as I'm concerned, she didn't sell out when she showed us how to create a glorious dinner party that requires virtually no cooking - provided that you have a brilliant Italian deli within a modest taxi ride. No, it was when she was filmed tucking her 11-year-old son up in bed - we've had enough now, thank you.
Nigella Express, her current BBC2 series, seems to be based on the lie that you can have it all. All that apparently effortless cooking, as part of the perfect yummy-mummy lifestyle, is getting a bit cloying. I know that cooking proper food for a family is pretty demanding - and I have the advantage that much of our grub is grown on the premises and that our meat comes from within a few miles of home. But good food takes time, patience and thought. Yes, it's worth it, but, please, Nigella, do acknowledge that it isn't easy. Few worthwhile things are.
Is it any wonder that food programmes are so often watched by people who are tucking into ready meals perched on their laps? Ready meals are better than ever, and there has never been more food-related stuff on the small screen. Which, you have to agree, is a bit of a paradox.
It's not that food on television has no effect, of course. In Britain there are reports of surging sales of vegetable seeds. Allotments (of which we have precious few in Ireland) are in greater demand than at any time since the Dig for Victory campaign, and you can get capers, balsamic vinegar and, for all I know, organic harissa in the average corner shop.
Jamie Oliver, having raised public awareness of the lousiness of school meals - a phenomenon that, ironically, we are spared in Celtic Tiger national schools - is busily encouraging us, on Jamie at Home, to grow kohlrabi and all manner of other green stuff. But, again, the saintly Jamie - and I believe he should have a knighthood rather than a measly MBE - is guilty of the cardinal sin of implying that it's all easy. If I had invested half the time I put into running a modest vegetable and fruit garden into stock-market analysis I could have retired by now. But I wouldn't eat as well as I do.
Jamie Oliver is often the butt of jokes and jibes from lesser beings in the cult of food. The latest slings and arrows have been delivered by Marco Pierre White, who was wheeled out to head up Hell's Kitchenthis month, on UTV and TV3. White, who makes Gordon Ramsay appear natural and charming, took a pot shot at Jamie on the rather meagre basis that school food in general has not greatly improved.
Jamie Oliver's great quality is that, in a media industry concerned solely with presentation, his zeal for proper food - pukka food - for everyone shines through. He has done more to raise awareness of real food issues than any other so-called celebrity chef. His relative youth and full-on Essex accent have been great helps in this regard.
I have a feeling that Jamie's insistence that food should take centre stage in his programmes must have been a point of contention with the production executives. They tend to be more interested in emotion than what goes on the plate.
Consider Hell's Kitchen. The personal shortcomings of Jim Davidson, who came across as a bully, a homophobe and so much more, were the talking points of the series. Food took a back seat.
Cook Yourself Thin, a good idea on paper, translated into a Channel 4 series obsessed with the emotional state of various plump participants. Clearly based on BBC2's entertaining and vaguely educational The Truth About Food, which was an unlikely hybrid of MythBusters, Brainiac,Delia Smith and Robert Winston, it sold out to the core value of reality television: tears.
Why not put food at the centre of food TV? Oddly enough, in Ireland that's what we tend to do. Rachel Allen and Richard Corrigan show you how to do stuff. Even on RTÉ's The Restaurant, a programme I participate in but can take no credit for thinking up, food is what is judged.
Not so on BBC2's The Restaurant, in which Raymond Blanc puts would-be restaurateurs through their paces, the prize being a joint venture with the great man. Food is secondary. The series is mainly concerned with putting a curious assortment of people through hell and seeing how they fare. Odd as it may seem, this is not an unreasonable index of suitability for the restaurant trade.
But television lies, of course. Blanc comes across as a tough but warm-hearted mentor. People who have worked with him say that his temper makes Gordon Ramsay look like a fluffy bunny. That he has not strangled some of the competitors with his bare hands amazes me. Whoever wins, of course, will understand and cherish good food, as well as appreciating all the other qualities that go to make an efficient restaurateur.
And after the plethora of food programmes that are such only in name, food is bound to return to its rightful place in television. It can't happen too soon. We want to know how to do it. We want ideas and tips and advice. Anything else is just reality TV.