Better a meal of vegetables

Where have all the ‘how to cook’ programmes gone?

For years we’ve had series of Jamie, Nigella and Delia. Or we had those other, perhaps slightly less popular, people who needed more than one name: Two Fat Ladies, The Hairy Bikers, Nigel Slater, Rick Stein. Studio-centred presentations have gone, and themed or travel-based series are just about hanging on (remember Nadia goes to Bangladesh?). But what is left centre-stage is competition cooking and eating education.

Tension and empathy

Britain’s Best Home Cook (BBC 1) is a case in point. It follows on from Bake Off, The Great British Family Showdown and Master Chef by putting the public in the kitchen, ramping up the tension as they compete against each other. Who will win this round, and then who will win the next? Who will be sent home in shame? And with the tension comes the empathy, as we follow their emotional ups-and-downs. Competitors just like us are seen hugging, fretting, helping each other out and sharing tearful departures. Sentimental perhaps, but gripping TV for many.

This homeliness, however, is juxtaposed with competitors’ evident ambition and necessary showing-off. The fondant-cardamon-gel smeared at the side of some fancy dish is a world away from our own kitchens, if we’re honest. The old cooking shows had an element of social climbing about them, with their sophisticated interiors and trendy ingredients (remember the national cranberry shortage caused by Delia in 1995?); these new competition-based offerings cause us to critique the food rather than copy it.

It isn’t a helping hand for us, but pure entertainment. We sympathise, then join in the judging from the comfortable vantage point of the sofa. And it’s all a bit reminiscent of social media’s simultaneous intimacy and isolation, drawing us close to look at the lives of others, but often leaving us disconnected and smug.

Food wars / class wars

The other cooking shows are of a different sort. Rather than celebrating luxury and skill, they tell us to pull up our socks. Eat Better for Less and the crusades of Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Jamie Oliver are attempts to instill good eating habits in the nation. Eat less refined sugar, eat organic, eat less meat, eat fewer carbs, eat more fruit and veg, they all preach.

The message is good for us and needed, but it often fails to recognise what food writer Grace Dent confessed in The Guardian recently: ‘Processed food is easy, tasty and restorative. It hits the spot. It celebrates, it pacifies, it is a light of hope at the end of another tricky day.’ She recognised that food wars are often class wars and, even more than that, they are wars with a religious dimension, imagining the producers proclaiming: ‘Sugar is the false god. The real saviour – gather round, people – is a Fitbit and fresh air.’1 None of this is new. Evangelical activist Hannah More in the 18th century did her own bit to try to teach the poor to cook more cheaply. But before we join in the chorus of advice perhaps we should scrutinise our own attitudes to food and other people.

God and food

The celebration of delicious food in competition cookery is right. God has given us an abundance of wonderful produce and fantastically skilled people to prepare it. In Genesis 1 and 2 we are told of the array of good things given for humanity’s enjoyment. The emphasis on home cooking and family in some of these programmes is wonderful. Meals bring communities together like nothing else can. Food has been graciously given to us as a shared comfort.

Yet the introduction of competition and individual eating is at the heart of our modern problem with food. Proverbs 9.17 warns us that ‘stolen water is sweet; food eaten alone is delicious’. Private comfort eating, whether of stuffed wood pigeon or cheesy wotsits, leads to disaster. It is an idol which promises delight, but brings self-despair. Just as destructive is the idol of clean, super-healthy eating which brings self-righteousness and slavery. Our hunger for food shows us our neediness. We really do need sustenance and we need comfort. Above all – and this is what all our cravings are really pointing to – we need our great Lord, the true bread from heaven.

Sarah Allen lives in Huddersfield and is a member of Hope Church, where her husband is a pastor. She teaches A level English and is currently studying for a Masters in theology.