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ShareGastro porn is what a friend calls watching Nigella Lawson's cooking show. Well, he's a man and they do things differently. Lawson may be luscious but she's also an adept hand in the kitchen and full of little tips about how not to get frenzied about the little details and an expert on shortcuts.
Besides, she's not a thin little bimbette -- c'mon, you know that those might look good but they definitely don't eat -- telling us about food all over the world. Okay, Padma Lakshmi is beautiful and stern as the anchor for Top Chef, but there's no way she eats. If you eat, you grow. It's just that someone like Nigella is not ashamed of her size and makes the most of everything she has. It makes her recipes more believable. And hell, she looks good too.
Watching food on television -- regardless of the cook or the anchor -- is a kind of pornography though. That is, it is a compulsive addiction which gives pleasure by gratifying your senses. And food versus sex is an argument as old as us. Those who watch Anthony Bourdain eating across the world, however, might well be interested in both at the same time. Maybe he's the male version of Nigella?
The joy of watching though goes beond the usual sexy quotient. The sexiness here lies in the food, in the preparation and loving collation of the ingredients. Photographed cleverly piles of vegetables start to look seductive. You might not willingly eat turi when your cook makes it but if it's a courgette, suddenly everyone's lining up to eat it. Let's not even talk about the thrill of watching Kylie Kwong delicately and ruthlessly chop spring onions. You even forget her Australian accent.
But whether it's Jamie Oliver or Lawson or Kylie Kwong or Gordon Ramsay or even Kunal Vijaykar, what they do is deconstruct the myths around food without destroying the magic. That makes life a little difficult for our fancy chefs and restaurants in Mumbai because we already know far too much when we set out to eat. This includes those of us who cannot afford wine and truffle tours of Provence or whatever's the current poncy thing being done by the recently sophisticated (oats and roots in Baltistan? Naaah...).
What makes it worse is that because cheeses and cold cuts are available at delis if not your local grocery shop, you are not so intimidated either. This puts a greater onus on our restaurateurs not to take us for a ride while putting together their menus and their prices. The plethora of Italian eateries around the city especially have to buck up, because no longer can we be fooled by processed versions of Parmesan when we ourselves have access to the real thing.
Basically, we're spoilt. We can see, even if we can't taste, the best that the world has to offer and we know that we're being short-changed. Anyone listening?
