TV Is the Best Comfort Food
There’s little on television more stressful than when a contestant on Chopped tries to make ice cream. It sneaks up on you out of nowhere in the middle of a day-long binge of the high speed culinary competition. What started off as a chill afternoon of Netflixing, pivoting between screaming directives at the chefs and nodding sleepily at food you could never make yourself, becomes a horror movie as a chef heads toward the ice cream machine with precious few minutes left on the clock. "Don't go in there, you fool!" you shout like you're in a screening of A Quiet Place. But, of course, the chef in question cannot hear you. The ice cream machine whirs to life; you and the chef are at the mercy of physics and the fates.
As someone who grew up on the relative comforts of competition-less cooking shows like Julia Child's Cooking with Master Chefs and Martin Yan's Yan Can Cook, the rise of high stakes kitchen contests can be a bit jarring. "Food" is my favorite genre, of television show and in general, but there's a marked difference between being amiably instructed on something I'll never make by the lilting sound of Julia Child and watching Alton Brown shout at sweating millionaires as they race around an area holding a live lobster. It's a lot. It's thrilling but it keeps me up at night. I can't even look at a Baked Alaska without growing near apoplectic with sympathetic rage for Great British Baking Show's Ian. Please do not bring the dessert up to me; I am still not over it.
It's for this reason that some new iterations of the food television genre popping up on Netflix are a welcome change of pace. Chef's Table: Pastry, a confection-focused sequel to the successful documentary series, which begins streaming on April 13, is the latest in a slate of documentaries and digests that take a slow-food-style approach to storytelling. Instead of racing a clock to create an innovative meal, these series prize a refreshing thoughtfulness and deep dive into food and food culture. Think of them like narrative sous-vides.
Chef's Table: Pastry, like the original Chef's Table, focuses on one chef each episode, taking a documentary approach to unpacking a particular food artists' style, influences, and impact. Lensed by filmmaker David Gelb, both series have a cinematic sheen and luxurious pace that plays less like the sort of instructive food content we've come to expect, even on more documentary-focused fare like Anthony Bourdain's programs, and more like art films.
It's a markedly different experience of food content. While the series features chefs working at the top of their games to create complex, impressive cuisine, the resulting series functions more like comfort food than homework. Often featuring subtitled narration or dialogue, this isn't the kind of program that you can passively play in the background while doing something else, unless you're a polyglot. Like Terrace House, the engrossingly slow-cooked reality show in the Big Brother mold, the experience of watching Chef's Table: Pastry and other food digests of its kind, is both an active one and a remarkable passive sensory stimulation.
Similarly, David Chang's Ugly Delicious, which premiered late last year, eschews a straightforward approach in favor of a leisurely stroll through invigorating ideas. With a loose magazine structure, Chang and a roster of guest stars circle a core idea in each episode, approaching from different angles and zooming out to draw connections between food culture and the way that people relate to each other in a broader sense. Like Chef's Table: Pastry, it is beautifully shot, though it has a more jocular visual style and an even more lax relationship to narrative. Ugly Delicious plays like a particularly meaty dinner conversation, free-wheeling, frequently witty, and more than anything, comfortable.
Of particular note is the sixth episode, which focuses on fried chicken. Stringently unpacking American stereotypes, the corporatization of soul food, and the intriguing intersections between East Asian culture and soul food culture, the episode is a masterpiece. It's also a deeply compassionate study of a complex, potentially explosive subject. And it's the compassion that lingers in this show and in so many others, like the laconic travel journal Somebody Feed Phil and the warm-hued docuseries Cooked.
This beautiful new iteration of food-focused entertainment programs is a welcome respite from a media landscape that is continually moving faster. By taking a leisurely approach to the sprawling ideas that undergird consumption and culture, these series are restorative, provoking new ideas and also making good on the chill part of Netflix & Chill. They're not disposable, but rather delectable and digestible. The rigor of a cooking competition will probably never go out of style, but sometimes you want a program that's been specifically designed, like a home-cooked meal, for you to sit for a spell and savor.
Ugly Delicious, Somebody Feed Phil, and Cooked are now streaming on Netflix. Chef's Table: Pastry begins streaming on April 13.
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