A Contest of 2024 Cooking Content
A Mini-Guide of the 2024 Culinary Media-Verse
At the end of every year, an inevitable question gets asked throughout the many spaces that I exist in: what was your favorite [thing] of the last year? And because memory is weird in that I am capable of remaining the storied history of trivial bits of friends groups but not necessarily what came out eleven months ago, for 2024, I started keeping a list of all of the media I consumed in a series of discord threads.
About midway through the year, I was asked several times why I don’t have a Letterboxd, a question I still don’t have a good answer to. This is not really the point of the post, just some background to today’s actual topic: cooking media.
I have been watching cooking media pretty aggressively since the 2010 when I was a sophomore undergrad and I started watching Masterchef on Hulu while eating some sort of pre-made thing you stick in the oven. And that got me hooked on the genre. I wouldn’t fall into the full Ramsay Media Empire until 2014, when my company’s media blocker aggressively stopped all streaming access except for YouTube and after working through someone’s online rip of Mobile Fight G Gundam, I watched online rips of Hell’s Kitchen. I write for a living. I can’t really listen to music while I work because I end up transcribing lyrics, but when it comes to an angry British man yelling at people for not being good at a job they are supposedly good at, oddly soothing. Don’t ask me why.
I myself haven’t cooked regularly since 2020. It’s a combination of factor, including time, effort, being a single individual, and being a diabetic individual. It’s simply easier and more sensible to subsist off prepackaged goods. I’m fine with that. Maybe my prediclitions will change, but for now I Factor. It’s fine.
My main draw to cooking competitions is my main draw to all types of competition: I like watching people good at a thing be good at thing. And because there was an excessive ammount of cooking media that came out this year that really opened the genre, I’m going to my tier list of the content I’ve seen and why. Any ranking internal to the bracket is arbirtary. Should I wait until the end of the year to do these type of lists? I mean maybe, but this entire newsletter is whatever my flavor of the week is.
Satisfactory Sidestories
Blue Ribbon Bake
This show is the literal definition of fine. I watched time sometime in August and have retained next to no knowledge about memorable challenges. I do remember being upset whenever a BIPOC was eliminated. It’s fine. It pales in comparison with some of the other cooking shows Netflix has produced in the past (please give me a School of Chocolate S2 Netflix. Or Drink Masters!). It’s on the list because it’s on the list.
Food Stars
Food Stars is fascinating because at its core, there is fascinating premise of putting different types of food adjacent people in competition with each other and trying to find the most well rounded person. There are chefs. There are entrepuerners. There are straight up mad scientists. The problem is that I rarely find myself caring about the individuals. The challenges are fascinating and watching Ramsay and Vanderpump guide the fledging food stars to new heights is mostly entertaining, I just wish the casting was a little stronger because it is refreshing to see all of the different aspects of culinary knowledge expressed.
Mainstays of the Genre
The Rest of the Ramsay Media Empire
Hell’s Kitchen, Masterchef, Masterchef Jr., Next Level Chef. These are the prototypical cooking shows and even though they have become gimmicky as they aired their 23rd, 14th, 9th, and 3rd season respectively, they’re still good content. Of course, I have written them out in reverse order of airing, so time for subdivisions.
Next Level Chef
A good show with a good premise, Next Level Chef was the first big cooking competition I watched this year and it’s fun set piece bogged down by it’s arbitrary distinction of who is a home cook, a social media cook, and a professional chef.
Masterchef & Masterchef Jr.
These series will always hold a special place in my heart if only because it was my gateway to cooking shows. And also maybe because I got to interview some of the chefs because life is funny like that sometimes. Masterchef’s generational gimmick grew weary pretty much immediately, but I am very excited for the duos gimmick next season.
Hell’s Kitchen
Ah, the show you think of first when you think of Gordon Ramsay. The reason why it’s been going on for 23 seasons is because the formula works.
The Great British Bake Off
I very clearly remember when my friend sat me down to watch the wholesome baking show that stood diamaterically opposed to everything American cooking media repersented and honestly it was great. The more recent seasons haven’t been quite as captivating, but it’s bright and cheery and the good bakes are phenomal bakes.
Barbecue Showdown
Barbecue Showdown is on the cusp of being bumped up a tier. I think I’m just holding a grudge from the season 1 results. But this show makes the hungriest out of all of the shows.
Crime Scene Kitchen
Crime Scene Kitchen really stands out this year if only because it much like the others in their top echolon of content, it’s not *just* a cooking competition. It’s a convoluted puzzle that rewards thoroughness and observational skills primarily.
Finally, Some $#@%ing Content
Culinary Class Wars
Culinary Class Wars is 100% live action anime bullshit and I love it. If this show wasn’t at least partially inspired by Shokugeki no Soma, I would be flabbergasted. This show is pure theater and spectacle at its finest, a ridiculous premise with all sorts of scales of competition and large personality. Watch this. Watch this now. And maybe also go watch the weird ecchi that has a surprisingly nuanced view on classism in the culinary world.
Gastronauts
Dropout has very quickly become my favorite streaming platform because it is aggressively cheap for the sheer volume and variety of content it has and the addition of Gastronauts into the line up has solidified that. Letting improv comedians give ridiculsous challenges to professional chefs is nothing short of brilliant and while I have only seen one episode, the episode has convinced me it’s leagues above many of the others here because it’s unafraid to be weird.
The Best Show(s) IMO
The Bear
The astute will note that while the majority of the shows I’ve listed are cooking competitions, the list itself is a tier list of cooking media and The Bear is in fact cooking media. Season 3 was perhaps the weakest season, but it is still one of my favorite television shows period (behind only Cobra Kai at the moment), and it’s so utterly compelling that yes, I’ll break my arbitrary rules to include it here.
Last Bite Hotel
We will however finish this list off with what is actually my favorite cooking competition airing right now. Last Bite Hotel is 100% most novel pitch we’ve had. Each chef gets 15 ingredients and as chefs get eliminated, they can will their remaining ingredients to the other chefs. It is one of the few shows where the social game and skills game interact with each other in meaningful ways without completing washing it out and Tituss Burgess is the perfect host for the campy nature of the show. I recommended it dearly. It is perfect cooking content and perfect spoooky content.
That’s all for this this week. Turn in next week for a different type of consumption based content.