Pandemic programming isn't just alliteration. Cooking in a pandemic is a skill people are learning or re-learning. The premise of Amy Schumer Learns to Cook is Amy Schumer (comedian, actor) doesn't know how to cook and her husband Chris Fischer (chef) does know how to cook.
The Food Network show has 8 episodes crammed into 4 1-hour shows. Each segment starts out with a cocktail since Amy Schumer does know how to mix drinks. Alcohol isn't food, unless that food is grain alcohol Jell-O, a lesson I learned when I was 18.
The show is casually produced with Jane, the nanny, handling a camcorder and the graphics listing the dishes are written on cardboard. That is the pandemic part. There are many more bleeps than you find in a typical cooking show.
Are we there to learn or to be entertained? Schumer is compelling with her humor and interest in cooking. The audience theoretically would tune in to also learn how to cook.
Let's look at the mushroom pasta from episode 2. Fischer cuts up some oyster mushrooms and onions. He sauteed the mushrooms and then sets them in a bowl while he sauteed the onions. Garlic, butter, olive oil, thyme, salt, parmesan cheese, and a bit of pasta water go in with the onions and the mushrooms when they go back into the pan.
Without any sense of proportion, an established chef could duplicate that but most at-home cooks would struggle. You learn how to put a bunch of stuff together but not really learn cooking.
Fischer steams in a way I haven't seen on any cooking show in that the food touches the water. We can't see what happens but steaming isn't what that looks like.
There are some fun extemporaneous moments. Fischer wanted to make a potato and radish salad in episode 4. Schumer asks if they can do mashed potatoes instead. They do. A random pot of cooked down tomatoes in episode 2 becomes a mystery pasta "that no one asked for," said Schumer.
Good Eats is the grand exception where measurements are given on cooking shows. Fischer's approach is to be more vague than Bobby Flay, which we didn't think was possible.
Fischer is good at incorporating vegetables into dishes. The Greek salad dip in episode 3 was ingenious. His obsession with fennel and onions drive Schumer bonkers. The dishes are very simple, rustic. The crab, tomato, avocado salad is pretty straightforward. You learn to put things together and hope they come close to matching what happens on the screen. You do miss a camera angle or two. Schumer often has to come in and ask Fischer what he just did. At one point, Schumer misses a step and says that she will have to watch the show to see what happened. Good luck.
The chocolate peanut butter cookies get a substitution in episode 1 since they have almond butter, not peanut butter. They pass it off as a pandemic result since they ran out of peanut butter.
The premise is that Schumer learns all along but the final episodes pour it on that Schumer learned a few skills along the way. Her chopping skills do improve.
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Amy Schumer Learns to Cook shows the future of post-pandemic food shows -- well, not the shaky camera work anyway. Matching a person who knows how to cook with someone who doesn't is a more educational way to learn how to cook. The cook knows a lot, almost too much. The ingenue likes to eat but doesn't know how to get there.
We don't learn to cook from the expert. We learn from the clueless person who is learning to cook in front of our eyes.
photo credit: Amy Schumer Learns to Cook/Food Network
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