‘Foodies’, I think, don’t even really enjoy food.
It’s more that they enjoy using it as an excuse to point out that they’re more educated, cultured or better off than you. Your average ‘foodie’ is nothing more then an arrogant culture snob, sneering at you for eating bacon for breakfast rather than a granola bar. Which is why it’s great to see an American come and piss on their chips in the form of Man V. Food. Sorry – not chips. I meant ‘hand-reared New Jersey pommes-frites julienne’.
In this programme, Adam Richman travels up and down the nation of anti-foodies: America. Birthplace of the burger and chips and the only nation to consider maple syrup and bacon to be compatible. If contest-eating was a sport in the Olympics, they’d clean up.
The premise is this: Every week, Richard visits an American City (like Jamie Oliver) and visits a few of their more famous eateries. But, unlike Jamie Oliver, he doesn’t condescend at the locals while that Snow Patrol song plays in the background. Instead, he watches them make whatever artery clogging food they’re famous for, his boyish enthusiasm showing through.
There’s something refreshing about it. The programme doesn’t celebrate his (apparently considerable) wealth of culinary knowledge by trying to find the most natural steak, organically-reared cow, with the freshest ingredients from blah, blah bloody blah. Instead, they let Richard celebrate his love of food the American way: getting great huge piles of it and then stuffing it in and around his face whilst trying to beat a stopwatch. Every episode has some kind of ’challenge’; eat a mile long fajita, down a steak the size of a hubcab, etc.
The meat of the programme draws food away from the culturally elitist mindset and straight into no frills, masculine joy. That’s not ‘masculine’ in the Arnie way, you understand, but more the masculine trait of taking something we all take for granted – eating, shitting memorising all football clubs in alphabetical order – and turning it into some kind of inane competition, to prove how good you are at really mundane things.
In the episode I saw, Richman ate 12 of the hottest chicken wings known to man. The focus is on him eating it, like porn for food lovers, with chicken sauce dripping down his fingers and smeared across his face. We leave him standing in a car park, bent over double, euphoric at his having beaten the chicken wing challenge.
There are drawbacks. Obviously the whole thing has a whiff of American jockishness. Expect lots of whooping from the audience, for one. It also suffers from what I like to call ‘American TV disease’ which is when they mess about with the footage that was shot, fast forwarding to the end, replaying the best bits, swamping the screen in little idents and such. If you don’t like overly slick editing, this will give you a headache.
Still, it’s a tonic to the current school of thought around food and a decent way to kill half an hour. And to put the icing on the cake – though, as this is Man Vs Food the cake is the size of a truck wheel, with sixteen stone of melted chocolate in it and 12,699 different types of icing – it got up Jonathan Bernstein of The Guardian’s nose, who finds that the challenges make him “a little uneasy.’
What better recommendation could you need?
Gorge away!
16 Comments
Nice review Ug. Keep up the good work.
P.S Did you watch First 48?
What’s First 48?
Happy birthday Clarry -did I just miss you beeping me in fbook chat?
And yes – a ruddy good review, I’m going to have to watch this.
“meat of the show” very good Ug.
Good review, what channel is it on?
I managed 5 minutes of Ramseys Kitchen USA last night. He is a vile man yet I (guiltily (?)) enjoyed watching him insult his new interns.
Good mornings
This looks aces! Every time I’m in the states I can’t resist trying to eat a 7-11 burrito, despite the fact that it always, always results in my having an arse like a cherry_top work fat Americans! Speaking od arses-Ramsay is a tit, but I still reckon him pushing a short, fat, oily and timid Jewish man against a kitchen wall and shouting “Get in there you dirty pig!” Is my top TV moment this decade! So good work to the crinkle-cut chip-faced bully!
Good article btw
I really like the look of this (and those wings)
This is possibly not my cup of tea, but a great review nonetheless Ugeine!
Re Ramsey: that show is more formulaic than your average version of CSI, and so I no longer watch it. At least with CSI you get to guess whodunnit each week.
The way Ramsey spat out some of the food was clumsy. I think he should spit in in their faces at speed.
Nick, that is really vile. Being spat at by another is really demeaning. He wouldn’t be allowed to do that!
In my comment up there ^^ I was referring to that one where he goes into a failing restaurant as being formulaic. I hadn’t read your comment properly, sorry
Very true, but Ramsay has less obnoxiously ginger people on, so it evens out…
*dyes hair*
Interceptor – Ramsey and Horatio are similarly cheesey though!
I enjoyed this review very much.
It’ll be interesting to see what Mr River Cottage has in store for his foodie rivals on his new show. It won’t be 9p noodles, that’s for sure.
Maybe you could share some of your ‘delicious’ recipes with him, Dave?
I don’t like the tone of your quotation marks, madam. And, besides, didn’t I say ‘it won’t be 9p noodles’, which means there’s no way my 9p noodle, 22p tuna, grated cheese and mayonnaise delight would be accepted.
But it’s okay for him to make a cake out of mashed potatoes….
Dave, mashed potatoes with a fried egg on top. MARVELOUS!
Cheers everyone!
Its not currently on over here at the moment, but I think it won’t be long before its bought up over here.
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