I love cooking and food shows – they are my guilty pleasure. I am a big foodie and love cooking and collect cookery books, recipes and cook / try out new recipes whenever I can. These pictures show just a few of the recipes I have scrap booked and cooking books that I have collected over the years.

I love cooking and food shows for their creative, quick and fast paced editing. Over the years I have watched so many different food shows and noticed a variation of designs to make them look modern, rustic, independent or in the style of reality television. Here is a just a small hand full of shows that I love – not just for its recipes, but because of the way it is edited / graphics produced or the actual concept.

Jamie Oliver 15 Minute Meals

Out of all of Jamie Oliver television shows, this is one of my least favourites – however I really like the way that it is edited. I really like the short and fast edits to advertise the food that he is cooking. I really like the fact that the split screen is used a number of times to create a cool and modern look.

Come Dine With Me

I love this show and watch it a lot (especially on a lazy day) I find it very entertaining and really enjoy the format of the show. Recently, I have started to re-watch the first few seasons of the show and find it fascinating how different the editing is now compared to then.

The editing in the earlier series is very basic and drags out the narration of the contestant who is cooking. In the later series of the show it gets to the facts about the person quicker and mixes the recipes in with them cooking them instead of the format in the earlier seasons where it goes Menu-reactions of other contestants – cooking prep – the meal.   The new seasons tend to go Part of menu revealed – reaction – cooking of this section – part of menu revealed – reaction – cooking – part of menu revealed – reaction – cooking – the meal.

I love the celebrity episodes of CDWM as well as it shows some of them in a different light. One of my favourite episodes of CDWM is actually the worst episode. There was an episode based in Ramsgate where a contestant called Marcello Marin insulted and was really rude to every contestant he was up against. I didn’t like his manner, the one thing I found fascinating was the response that came afterwards.   (read about the story here) A cooking show having this much impact on the public I find quite interesting. Here are clips from a few of the shows.

Fabulous Baker Brothers

The one thing that I like about this cooking show is the use of colour and rustic graphics used throughout it. It is based around two brothers, one who is a chef and the other who is a baker. It is fast paced editing and uses really warm and rustic colours through (what I am guessing) the Online edit which makes me really like the show.

Ace Of Cakes

My friend at University introduced me to this show and since then I try and watch it as much as I can. The one thing I do like about American television in general is how differently a show is edited that is in the same genre a a UK show.

I would love to give a pile of the same footage to both an English Editor and an American Editor and see how differently they make the same show.  The one thing I really like about American Television is the way that they highlight the food that is going to be made in the show. They show it usually at the beginning, after every advert and then a huge focus on it at the end. I find that American television focusses mainly on the shock value or the drama of a food show where as UK cooking shows tend to just show you how things are made.

I really like the way that AOC is edited and the way that it focusses on the production process of the cakes in the Charm City cake shop. I like the way that music is used throughout the show and that it feels like a sense of a reality show.

Cupcake Wars

I am not a big fan of cupcakes, and I very rarely watch this show, but its a programme I quite enjoy. This show produces tension, drama, and mixes the elements of reality television and talent competitions genres that the States tend to do a lot of. I like the way that the cupcakes have to be inventive. Unlike AOC, it thrives more on the drama and the competition between the contestants then the actual food, when it goes to breaks etc.

Nigel Slater Simple Suppers

I really like the simple and straight forward format to this show. One of my favourite things about this show is the Motion Graphics that are used in between the recipes. I love scrap books in general and the use of animation to make the recipes appear in a handwritten style in a scrapbook cooking book is very clever. I really like the way that the sounds of the garden are used throughout and the music as well. It is very simple editing (to obviously tie in with the name of the show) and thats why I love it so much from an editing perspective, as well as a television show.

My absolute favourites cooking show – Cutthroat Kitchen 

Sadly, we do not have this in the UK but it is such a great and addictive show. There are 4 contestants and each start off the show with $25,000 they have to bid against each other on really random items that are going to slow down the other person from cooking the perfect meal or surviving to the next round. Some of the items they have had up for bid in the past include – all utensils to be made out of tinfoil, to cook on a children size cooker, to have to carry around all your food with you, to share a see-saw cooking area with another opponent – the list goes on and on. I like it because its different and is really entertaining to see who will survive or do well with the items they are given.

There are many other food shows out there that I really like watching for either pleasure, to gain inspiration, of because of the feel of it. I could go on and talk about all the food shows I like or have watched over the years: The Great British Bake Off, Master chef, Heston, Food Glorious Food, Can’t Cook Won’t Cook, Ready Steady Cook, Saturday Kitchen, Gary Rhodes, Delia Smith, Jamie Does America, River Cottage, Man Vs Food, Paula Dean, etc etc but there are too many to mention.