Now that Anthony Bourdain's food porn reality take on spoon fulls of bites from both home cooks and professional chefs in a 'the voice' like fashion is done, I have to just wonder what the hell was the point of all that?
I watched it from the start for two reasons. I worshiped Anthony Bourdain from way back when I first read Kitchen Confidential and then Cook's Tour started airing. He was, well, he was larger than life. The second reason is because of Nigella Lawson. Who, well, she's just damn beautiful to watch and listen.
You put two of my favorite food celebrities on one show and my interest is peaked. Of course I was going to take a loo. What ended up being the show was really... well, underwhelming at best.
You have Anthony Bourdain, who seemed really neutered in a show he was executive producer of. How exactly does this happen? This man has wit and smarts oozing out of his skin and he's just... there. I'm not sure if having to go through so much make up touch ups on camera opposed to not having to do any of that in No Reservations threw him off? Perhaps it was simply that he's limping to the barn now knowing he isn't SCRIPPS personal slave anymore.
Ludo was indecipherable to understand the entire time and let's be honest here, I worry about his wife since he was practically humping his mentored person Sarah. So much so that he really just neglected being a mentor to anyone else in his kitchen.
I still have no idea what Brian Malarkey has done other than being a reactionary ponce in reality television cooking shows to warrant him being a go to chef on the matter. The little leprechaun constantly wears sneakers without socks and rolls his designer blue jeans up to flood levels. He's as edgy as allowed on network television. But perhaps that's more of the fault of the Networks, which have mandated that anyone with a genuine personality is not allowed on television as it offends the people that vote the milquetoast white guy every season to win on American Idol.
I love Nigella and her breast and British accent are something to always enjoy, but she was constantly wrong in most everything she advised and choose on this show. Her opinions on just about everything ended up having her lose every single one of her mentored choices. Which does beg the question about her ability to pick winners in this sort of game. She's very kind hearted, but there wasn't a choice she made on here that ended up correct.
The show constantly did the worst in product placement possible. Only second to when Chase credit card showed up on No Reservations. Which is making me wonder if Bourdain has simply said 'fuck it' and just embraced the whole notion that he's sold out, may as well make as much money with it.
It ended up being one giant commercial for Best Foods Mayo. It was a common thing that they would highlight some god awful recipe that incorporated it into the dish, for a lack of all common sense as to why anyone would put mayo into it. I'm not even going to get into the car promotion. That went to levels that I didn't want to remember of my American Idol working days.
But the worst thing about the taste was the way it ended. The finale of The Taste was about as rewarding as finding out you have pancreatic cancer. Here is your winner, POP the confetti cannon and everyone be happy for them. Annnnnnnnnd FADE TO BLACK!
Um.. okay?
In the past episodes, the show went into a little bit of detail about why people lost the game or why their spoon full of food was bad or what made it amazing. But when it came down to the final two it was never discussed about how Charlie Sheen's lesbian personal chef won vs the self-entitled chick who is so much better than anyone ever, just ask her. Which the editing on that self-entitled bitch was really strange. In some footage they'd try to play up that she lived in her car and this was a sort of underdog. But then in others they really played up the fact that she hated everyone else and should have won whatever challenge.
But they never got into why one beat out the other when it came to their final spoon fulls of food. It's as if the network wasn't willing to give them that extra hour to play up the whole final four to final three to final two situation that most reality television loves to squeeze an extra hour or two out of advertisers with.
I guess I'm a bit impressed that Kristianne won it all. Not because of her cooking skills. She had gotten gold star after gold star in the last wave of episodes. But she is far from the conventional conservative/traditional looking chef that network television would have liked. Then again, there wasn't a cook book deal or a TV show contract on the line for the grand prize. So maybe that worked in her favor by ultimately not being factored in.
But overall, I was left feeling like even my passing watching of this show, which was just typically background, left me with not much. I actually kind of liked the idea of the show on paper, even if it was just a culinary ripoff of The Voice, but the way it was executed really was disappointing, especially since it felt like they constantly had to remind the viewers of the rules every fucking five minutes.
In the end, The Taste had the ability to be much better than the sum of its parts and not be just another cliched vessel for a Hell's Kitchen knockoff, but it failed on all of those things. Instead, this show just left a horrible taste in your mouth.
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