{"id":2559,"date":"2010-01-11T13:49:49","date_gmt":"2010-01-11T13:49:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/webcookingclasses.com\/?p=2559"},"modified":"2016-03-28T12:45:58","modified_gmt":"2016-03-28T16:45:58","slug":"the-worst-cooking-instructors-in-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/webcookingclasses.com\/the-worst-cooking-instructors-in-america\/","title":{"rendered":"The Worst Cooking Instructors in America"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"The Worst Cooks in America continued on the Food Network last night<\/strong>. Last week\u2019s premier episode had such promise, and I’m still anticipating the cutting edge of culinary instruction from the MTV of Food. The point was to teach the contestants to cook, right?<\/p>\n

Accurate and safe knife skills are always the start to any cooking instruction<\/strong>, and Worst Cooks in America starts off correctly this week. \u201cHooray for the Food Network!\u201d I thought. They\u2019re going to teach by building on basic cooking methods, not recipes! My excitement didn\u2019t last until the next commercial break. Perhaps it\u2019s the editing of a one hour show, but the criticism and crying took the place of teaching very quickly.<\/p>\n

Instead of instruction on Worst Cooks in America, the contestants are just told to \u201cdo it\u201d<\/strong>, placed under time constraints, and criticized as if they were already professional chefs. It\u2019s obvious that they haven\u2019t been taught any actual cooking methods from their reaction to the chefs erasing the blackboard recipe in the middle of their challenge, total chaos.
\n
\nThe contestants were taken to a Japanese restaurant<\/strong> and told to cook scallops and steak on a flat-top grill that Chef Beau said was \u201clike 800 degrees\u201d. This is like taking someone that doesn\u2019t know how to drive, putting them on a NASCAR track, and yelling at them for not going fast enough.
\n\"\"
\n\u201cActors practice lines, chefs practice recipes,<\/strong>\u201d Chef Beau scolded the contestants. I don\u2019t agree. Actors practice acting method, then interpret their lines. Chefs practice imparting heat to food, then interpret with ingredients.<\/p>\n

So, it\u2019s time for me to take over.<\/strong> In my online cooking classes, as well as my DVD series, the focus is on basic cooking methods, not recipes. The essence of cooking is how you control the transfer of heat to food. This should be the second step, knowing the difference between direct conductive heat, and indirect convective heat.<\/p>\n

Rather than giving the contestants delicate and difficult products like scallops and duck breast,<\/strong> I would start with a simple saut\u00e9 of a chicken breast. Saute\u2019 method is the best start for anyone learning to cook. Here, you can watch all that happens as you transfer heat to food. You can combine flavors quickly, drop the temperature of the pan with a cold liquid, and make a sauce. The best way to learn anything is to start with simple procedures and expand upon them.<\/p>\n

The chefs on this show have missed the opportunity to start at the beginning<\/strong> with explanations of what actually happens when we cook food. This would empower the contestants with skills and knowledge that will help them over the next 4 episodes. Maybe this is another piece of entertainment about chefs who make people cry. If that\u2019s it, they\u2019re doing a great job.<\/p>\n

Previously about Worst Cooks in America<\/a><\/p>\n

I promise, I won’t yell at you or make you cry.<\/strong><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Worst Cooks in America or the Worst Cooking Instructors in America?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":24080,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[29,31,32],"tags":[57,133],"yst_prominent_words":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/webcookingclasses.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2559"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/webcookingclasses.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/webcookingclasses.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webcookingclasses.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webcookingclasses.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2559"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/webcookingclasses.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2559\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webcookingclasses.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24080"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/webcookingclasses.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webcookingclasses.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webcookingclasses.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2559"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webcookingclasses.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=2559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}