Foodie travel shows

I didn’t grow up with a lot of confidence around cooking. Being brought up overseas, we had servants who did the cooking, and when my mother tried to teach me how to cook a curry in my later teens – we had a massive falling out. I eventually taught myself to cook after moving to London to live in a flatshare, where it was pretty much a learn to cook or starve situation.

I started out with simple stuff and – at the time – the goddess of cooking in the UK was Delia Smith. You’d think an unconfident cook like myself would thrive under her guidance, instead I felt terrorised by her exactitude. Precisely this much and for exactly this long – the thought even now brings me out in a sweat. The stress was overwhelming, so I discarded her and slowly found my way to cooks who gave me a feeling of comfort in the kitchen. With them, my confidence reached a good level – I was still a cook rather than a chef – but I came to enjoy it.

Along the way, I inherited my mother’s love of cookbooks, reading them for hours – who am I kidding, for days if the need to earn a living didn’t get in the way 😉 I was building up quite the collection when a requirement to downsize meant I had to make some hard choices.

Subsequently, Himself moved in and took over the cooking. He’s a natural cook, and has been since a young age. He has skills which wouldn’t shame a professional chef; indeed he could’ve worked in a professional kitchen, if he’d a mind to. He finds it relaxing, and so I happily left it – and the planning of meals – to him a few years ago.

We used to watch a fair few foodie programmes together, from which he’d take inspiration, tinkering with meals – without written recipes – until he was happy it met his exacting standards. Our viewing also encompassed chefs travelling around this or that part of the world. But, I’ve steadily become disenchanted with foodie travel shows, mostly because I find the chef and/or producers to be tone deaf in their behaviour towards the area and the people where they’re filming. It’s not overt – or not all of it is – but it’s there…. and that’s made me uncomfortable.

Then this year, came Stanley Tucci and his programme Searching for Italy. He wasn’t someone I knew well. Previously, I’d have been able to recognise his face without being able to put a name to him with any degree of confidence, that is until I saw the reviews for his book Taste: My Life through Food and heard about his experience with cancer. I self-gifted the book last Christmas, so when Himself spotted the trailers for the programme, he said “I suppose you’ll want to see that” in what could only be described as an unenthusiastic, if fond manner 😉

And then we watched it, every single programme together – each as enthusiastic as the other – for it was the most joyous experience. This is how travel foodie programmes should be made – with love, with respect, with self-deprecating humour, with genuine enthusiasm. I may be spoilt for any foodie travel shows for the foreseeable future….

Is foodie+travel a format you like to watch? Who do you think does the format well – or badly – and why?

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© Debra Carey, 2022