The dark-haired man in the dark winter jacket and white pants strolled unnoticed through the crowd at the Book and the Cook Fair. Approaching the stage area, he took off the jacket, exposing a stark white chef’s jacket embroidered with the name Emeril Lagasse.
As Lagasse himself would say on his high-energy TV shows:
“Bam!”
A crowd gathered instantly. Men and women grinned admiringly at the bubbly guy seen four times a day on the TV Food Network, the all-food cable channel. From the floor, up came the squeaky cries of “Emeril! Emeril!” as tiny hands tugged at his legs.
Behind this scene, a line of people snaked around the Convention Center, leading out from a table where chefs Mary Sue Milliken and Susan Feniger — TV’s “Too Hot Tamales” — were signing their latest cookbook. Standing in line, not too patiently as they clutched pens and books, were children.
Cooking shows — and their hosts — are big today, especially among young audiences. While many children enjoy watching Lamb Chop (as in Shari Lewis), others enjoy watching lamb chop (as in seared, maybe with a reduced pan sauce and garlic mashed potatoes).
Parents see it when their children wander into the kitchen and volunteer to make dinner. Celebrity chefs see it when they venture out to public appearances, and they see it in their mailbags.
“Kids come into the restaurant (Border Grill in Santa Monica, Calif.) all the time, and they’re star-struck,” said Feniger. Last month, her producers at the TV Food Network, which carries “Too Hot Tamales,” relayed this e-mail message:
“Your show is my favorite along with `Barney.’ I watch your show every night before I go to bed. . . . I think you both are really cool. Would either of you marry me? I like to cook too.”
The letter writer was 3-year-old Max Griffin Mandelbaum of Plymouth Meeting, Pa., who dictated to his father, Allen.
Before bedtime one night last week, Max gushed breathlessly about his heroes, Milliken and Feniger. “I like when they make stuff,” he said. “I like salami and eggs. I don’t know what they’re making sometimes. You know, the Tamales sent me a postcard!” Their autographs are his prized possession.
Allen Mandelbaum said Max runs around the house saying, “Bam!” and “Let’s kick it up a notch,” two Emeril-isms. So much for “Go, go, Power Rangers” and the “Sesame Street” theme.
Although PBS has aired cooking shows for more than three decades, and its stars have become household names, it’s the TV Food Network that has helped culinary stars to rise.
TVFN, which began in November 1993, can be seen in 22 million households and is one of cable’s fastest-growing networks. Though its ratings are a mere blip on the Nielsen radar — one of Lagasse’s shows, with a 0.7 rating, might reach 50,000 American households– it does have its loyalists; TVFN’s site on the World Wide Web (http://www.foodtv.com) receives a million hits a week.
David Rosengarten was a mere writer of food and wine before he started his TVFN show, “Taste.” Now, he’s a celebrity. “I hear all the time when I speak to parents that their 4-year-old or 8-year-old loves my show,” said Rosengarten.
Rosengarten’s daughters, ages 6 and 4, are Emeril fans, though they enjoy the TV cooking game show “Ready . . . Set . . . Cook” and manage to put up with their father’s show.
Lagasse, whose daughters are 15 and 17, said children were his second-biggest audience, “behind men. That Book and the Cook show was like a rock concert.”
Lagasse, 39, said cooking’s time has come for children. He started cooking, for fun, when he was 7. He got a job in a bakery at age 10. “When I was growing up, the kids on the block looked at me like I was some kind of weirdo. `I mean, he plays hockey, yet he cooks. Hmmm.’ “
Cooking is getting really cool. Even the child-television experts like it. Daniel R. Anderson, a psychology professor at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, who specializes in children and their TV viewing habits, said the boom was “a new phenomenon.”
He understands the appeal. “Things that go on in the kitchen are of great interest, especially for young children,” he said. “One of the rules of thumb is you watch things that are understandable. The kitchen is one of those places.” Watching cooking shows together and cooking together extend quality time, he said.
