Loving and Hating "Top Chef"

I can't help myself. I watch "Top Chef" every week. Some weeks I even look forward to it. I'm fascinated by how seriously the contestants and the judges take themselves: it's so different from my own approach to food.

Last night Tom Collichio, one of the judges, sat down with the contestants at the end of the show and had an earnest talk with them about his disappointment with the dishes they were creating. "You're not going to get to be Top Chef by making deviled eggs," he told one contestant.

The thing that's most bizarre to me about this show is the drive that the contestants have to come out on top, and the mystique that the judges cultivate around the title they're all competing for. Granted, publicity is great, and so is a chunk of money to start a restaurant. But the pressure to consistently create brilliant, original dishes calls to mind everything that irks me about the wonderful world of food.

Granted, it's just a TV reality show, and if I'm annoyed all I have to do is turn off the TV. But I think the show is really just a symptom of a deeper pathology that's all over the culinary domain: the hype around showing off individual talent rather than taking part in something that's so much bigger than any one of us.

Personally, the culinary achievements that impress me most are the ancient ones we most take for granted. I'm awed by creativity and genius that has gone into learning which foods are edible and which are poison, and then breeding the tastiest and most cost effective plants and animals to build a food supply capable of feeding billions of people. I'm continually amazed by the inexaustible palette of flavors from all over the world, the boldness and insight that it took for our ancestors to recognize and isolate the tastiest offerings from the world of possibilities, and then develop cooking techniques that really make them shine.

We don't know the names of the people who made these amazing discoveries. They never won awards on TV shows, and they weren't featured in magazines. But their contributions to our knowledge of food have left more important marks on our lives than any celebrity chef.