Andrew Zimmern and MSNBC proved to be a good combination on the What's Eating America series that ran earlier this year. Zimmern took us through how food connects to the issues in American society.
The impact on food and issues such as immigration and climate change was covered rather well in depth, especially for television. MSNBC has shown the episodes here and there. Zimmern has also appeared on various shows on MSNBC.
Zimmern teamed up with Joy Reid to host Food and the Pandemic: Recipe for Disaster. The show put the ongoing food issues and how the pandemic has heightened these concerns.
People waiting in lines for food distribution, often in long lines of cars. Those waiting in their cars in San Antonio for as many as 18 hours before the food bank opened. A lot of those people thought this wouldn't happen to them.
They talked with country music star Brad Paisley, who along with his wife, actor Kimberly Williams-Paisley, run The Store, a place in Nashville that looks and acts like a grocery store where customers don't get the bill at the end. The concept, which Paisley said was inspired in a place in Santa Barbara, CA, is that customers get to pick the food themselves as opposed to being handed a box at a food bank.
There was a wonderful segment about Karen Washington, who is working to encourage urban farming. The key stat in that segment was that fewer than 2% of U.S. farmers are Black. As we've learned in many other areas, role models build confidence that others can follow.
The show talked about food deserts and defining that as having to travel more than a mile in an urban setting. While we know about this topic, seeing this on cable news was rather remarkable. They also covered the challenges of those with diseases that compromise their immunity system is built on limited food choices.
They talked about the food bank in San Antonio is still feeding 250,000-300,000 people on a monthly basis. The stories may have disappeared from the headlines but the need is still there.
What's Eating America devotes cable news time to important food issues
BalanceofFood.com television coverage
Restaurant owners are struggling to keep themselves afloat. Some are helping feed others. Zimmern noted that a lot of food that normally went to restaurants needed to find a home where people could find and eat the food. This in a country that struggled with food waste even before the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic.
We don't say this lightly. This could be and should be a weekly update. More inspirational and hopeful stories on those using time an resources to help those in need to get good, quality food.
Food and the Pandemic: Recipe for Disaster gets another airing tomorrow night at 10 pm Eastern on MSNBC.
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Fridge Wars from CBC to air on the CW
She doesn't see meals when she looks in the refrigerator. This was the gist of a comment from a family on Fridge Wars, a Canadian show from the CBC that recently ran on the CW.
The concept is 2 chefs battling each other based on replicas of what the family had in the refrigerator. The families then judge the creations based on look, taste, and originality.
Each chef cooks for 2 different families in the hour-long program.
I swear I saw something similar on the Cooking Channel where the chefs actually cook in the kitchens of the families using their refrigerator content.
The Fridge Wars chefs get extra help from foods and equipment, mini-ads within the program. We have found that highly tasteless on U.S. shows. Seeing that from a show on a Canadian public broadcaster is degrading.
The show also gets caught in the TV trap of plates that look good as opposed to tasting good: 2 of the 3 categories have nothing to do with how the food tastes.
The chefs do use a lot of vegetables, make some dishes that are gluten-free, and show off creativity in an area where regular people actually struggle: taking what is in a refrigerator and turning the food into a meal.
Fridge Wars was made before the pandemic so there are no pandemic references in the show.
Emma Hunter is more comedian than host on the show and in real life. Hunter is engaging and plays up awkward moments with an ease Alison Sweeney (The Biggest Loser) could study for 20 years and still not master. Sweeney replaced Caroline Rhea, who was more approachable as the host and coincidentally, also a Canadian comedian.
Fridge Wars is available through the CW in the United States and CBC Gem in Canada.
photo credits: Food and the Pandemic: Recipe for Disaster; Fridge Wars
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