Getting the inside scoop on the Food Network

Mario Batali

There’s a new book out, From Scratch: Inside the Food Network by Allen Salkin, that describes the 20 years that the Food Network has been on. The Daily Meal has produced an interesting slideshow –  20 Surprising Facts about Food Network and Its Stars – that watchers may not be aware of. Here are five that we found  especially  interesting:

  • Emeril Lagasse’s famous “Bam” originated when he had to wake up camera operators who were falling asleep from being overworked.
  • Mario Batali, during one of his earliest shows, grated his knuckles  badly and since there were no “do-overs” hid his hand by dunking it in a bowl of tomatoes and crushing them continuously.
  • William Shatner (Captain Kirk from Star Trek) was the original host on Iron Chef – which was on another network.
  • David Rosengarten, an early Food Network stalwart, was so forgotten that a staffer called him to ask whether he’d like to audition for The Next Food Network Star.
  • In the original design for Chopped, the food would be served by a butler and fed at the end to a Chihuahua named Pico.

 

Photo of Mario Batali for Iron Chef promo

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2 Comments

  • FuzzyChef  on  October 10, 2013

    Um, Iron Chef was originally a Japanese TV show in the late 90's, recorded in Tokyo with an all-Japanese cast and script. There weren't even subtitles available for the first two seasons. So I kinda doubt William Shatner was involved.

  • TrishaCP  on  October 17, 2013

    Sad that I remember this, but there WAS in fact a William Shatner Iron Chef remake on UPN back in the day. It was the first American re-make of the Japanese Iron Chef show.

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