Kitchen Knives on TV

With healthy eating and nutrition becoming paramount in our society at the moment, teaching people cooking has never been so popular. buying knives (Messer kaufen) and kitchen utensils which are branded by celebrity chefs has become ever more popular. Celebrity chefs such as Gordon Ramsey, Ainsley Harriott, Anthony Worrall-Thompson, Jamie Oliver and Gary Rhodes are on most television channels trying to teach people the art of cooking, and launching their own brands of kitchen utensils, with our society fast becoming obese, celebrity chefs are making the most of showing people their cooking skills on television.

Ready Steady Cook which is hosted by Ainsley Harriott where there are two teams usually make up of members of the public, one green peppers and one red tomato, they are all given ingredients to cook, which usually cost under £5.00, they all have to think of a recipe and cook it in a certain time. They all begin chopping their food as quickly as possible with the kitchen tools provided, such as knives, forks, pepper mills (Pfeffermühle). At the end of the show the audience hold up either ‘green pepper’ or ‘red tomato’ and the one with the most votes wins.

Jamies Ministry of Food – Aims to get people who live on take aways, cooking. Based in Rotherham, Jamie advertises for people to join him who have never cooked. Some of them have never even boiled an egg and don’t even know how to turn on a cooker. He teaches them how to use knives (Messer) and the use of pepper and other spices within food. His mission is to teach two people, them two people teach another two, then this continues to multiply until in theory he gets the whole of Rotherham cooking. There are some really good recipes which have come from the show, and although he didn’t manage to get the whole of the city cooking, a good few of the people involved could cook by the end of the show.

Gordon Ramsey has quite a few of these cooking shows, Hells Kitchen – where he gets so many celebrities together to compete against each other, some of them can cook, some of them can’t, the viewers have to vote people off each week until it is down to a cook off between two of them. The viewers then vote again for who they want to win. The F-word is another of Gordon Ramsey’s cooking shows, where each week members of the public are invited to cook for guests in Gordon’s restaurant. They are given three recipes to cook one starter, one main course and a desert. It is up to the guests in the restaurant to say whether they are willing to pay or not for the food that is served. The higher the number of paying guests the better for the cooks which are competing. Another one of his shows is cook along live, where you can get the ingredients that he is going to use off the internet. Then the viewer tunes in the channel 4 on a Friday night and cooks along live with Gordon Ramsey. It is a great way to get people cooking.

Nigela Lawson – express cooking - makes cooking sexy – I am sure this is aimed at the male market who are a little lazy when it comes to cooking, but she does have a good knack of making cooking mega simple and quick. The ingredients she uses in her cooking are usually things that you would find in the cupboard at home. She cooks up food that is fast and nice, and ideal if you work long hours and only something quick when you get in at night. She also cooks up traditional dishes and home made puddings, and has a book which accompanies the series.