Bourdain versus Dean

Anthony Bourdain in his books and on television have never been shy about poking fun or out and out mocking Food Network stars. The most pointed comments are for people like Paula Deen, Rachel Ray, and Sandra Lee who are not professionally trained chefs and tend to use a lot of canned foods in their cooking. Paula Dean has fought back against this and it has become a very public feud.

Bourdain vs Deen

Admittedly Bourdain can be a pompous ass and a generally cranky bastard. In fact one might say that Tony has made a career as a professional chef being lovable but cranky guy. One of the things Bourdain seems to disdain his people he does not feel worthy of his respect. In his travels on No Reservations he deals with plenty of people that are not classically trained cooks but stills respects them for doing what they do really well. So based on that what is his major beef with Food Network and it's mix of professional chefs and other chefs with variety of backgrounds in cooking and food. They have a found a wide a broad based audience and I can see with a professional chef like Tony that can't be seen as a good thing. However I think there are more people that can relate to Rachel or Sandra who will make something that average home cook is willing to try over a more difficult gourmet dish that would prove daunting. As someone who has watched multiple hours of Food Network over the last few years I can see the justification for both points of view. On the one hand you need eyeballs on your shows to be able to exist as a network, but if you work to hard to reach the lowest common denominator you sacrifice a higher goal. So you need a mix of entry level cooking that just about anybody can do and something that will challenge you too. I find it an interesting discussion and like I said I find merits in both side of this.