Attention Gourmands!

Like the OP, I never watched Nathalie Dupree. However, I remember all of them well. You can still catch Mary Ann Esposito and Martin Yan on Tastemade or some such channel. I have to say, Mary Ann Esposito, with her wig and her hump, is really a bad cook. Her shows aren't at all helpful. Again, I'm not fan of Lidia, but her shows are generally instructive and her recipes legit. Martin Yan, when he's not being a clown, is actually a good cook.

Samsung has just recently the Martha Stewart channel and the Emeril Lagasse channel.

I live in Georgia and Dupree was all over the TV in the 80s and 90s. I liked her and her recipes are good. While Paula Deen is more well-known, Dupree was a far better cook and didn't have the red-neck, corny delivery os Deen.

Deen left the Atlanta area and moved to Charleston at some point. I think she is in the Raleigh area now. Dupree isn't young and I suspect she or her husband aren't in great health.

I recognize all of them, with mixed feelings. I was glad to see a couple of mentions of James Beard, who seems to be forgotten.

YAN CAN COOK

These are who you watched on weekends on PBS. Long long before the Food Network.

Remember Julia Child make deprecating remarks about The Galloping Gourmet. Later they were friends.

R6, Yes, Graham Kerr later experienced a religious conversion and denounced his previous boozy ways.

[quote] Deen left the Atlanta area and moved to Charleston at some point. I think she is in the Raleigh area now.

Paula Deen never left the Atlanta area because she never lived in the Atlanta area. She never went to Charleston or Raleigh either as she's lived in Savannah for many decades.

Do you even know who Paula Deen is?

When I was a toddler my mom would watch the galloping gourmet. Natalie Dupree was great at genteel entertaining. Martin Yan was so fun to watch, I have his branded rice cooker(!)

My Brazilian mom loved the PBS gem Yan Can Cook, sailed through a whimsical Asian phase, and eventually settled into making all our family favorites like it was her calling. I miss my mom and her cooking. XOXO

Anyone remember *The Frugal Gourmet*? Jeff Smith, that jolly ex-pastor who made PBS cooking feel homey. Always had some cute young male assistant within arm’s reach… apparently a little too literally. Next thing, they’re accusing him of getting handsy, lawsuits fly, and PBS tosses him out.

Personally, I wouldn’t have minded being on that show as an assistant.

R11, my BF wrote to The Frugal Gourmet as a child and got a personal reply. I joke that he was grooming him, but maybe he really was.

Jeez Graham Kerr, watched him as a kid in New Zealand. Black and white tv, *whoop *whoop.....not.

Nathalie Dupree was a real one. She had a show on Food Network that I loved, but because of the time it was on, I very rarely got to see it. "Cooking Live!" was indeed an early evening live broadcast of Nathalie presenting and preparing recipes for dinner, with the intention that the viewer would watch and cook along with her. And when things went wrong, she did her best to recover and salvage what she could. I though it was entertaining as hell, and I loved the viewers who would call the show in a tizzy because they'd botched something or other.

I liked Nathalie because she was a very proficient cook and, while very personable and fun to watch, was not a character like most of the TV chefs. I read a book called "From Scratch" about the history of the Food Network, and learned that Nathalie was a big part of the original network and, like many others, was done dirty by them in the end.

Oh, fuck, everything I just wrote in R14 was about Sara Molton. I couldn't be more embarrassed. Muriel, please let us edit/delete our posts someday!

I know who Nathalie is, and she's great as well.

I really liked The Frugal Gourmet and owned several of his cookbooks. His show and whole approach to cooking were my introduction to good food as a young adult.

Graham Kerr, brandishing the national vegetable of Wales: "Take a leek!"

He was a handsome man with a childish sense of humor, so silly it was funny. He'd wave a cup of peas or a small jar of peanut butter around & cry "There's as much protein in this as a WHOLE COW!!!!" Funny guy.

I had a crush on The Galloping Gourmet. I was 10. I think it was his accent.

I think Jeff Smith/Frugal Gourmet was accused of more than just "getting handsy..."

I seem to recall him being accused of pedophilia.

One of the "earlier" shows I remember seeing prior to the explosion of big cooking TV was "Too Hot Tamales."

I hung out with Graham Kerr in the green room of the old Letterman show. I was a rube but he was very kind to me and funny, too.

Lucky you, R20! I'd love to have met him in his prime -- not surprised he was both kind & funny.

Justin Wilson makes chili jambalaya

Exactly, R5.

I liked the Scandinavian guy who used to cook outdoors. And there was a large Black chef from New Orleans who was good.

Is Nigella Lawson still around?

Ming Tsai was a talented guy and affable in person.

Ming is still alive and still talented.

[quote]Oh, fuck, everything I just wrote in [R14] was about Sara Molton. I couldn't be more embarrassed. Muriel, please let us edit/delete our posts someday!

You should be embarrassed for not knowing her name is MOULTON.

[quote]Attention Gourmands!

No gourmands here - just us fat whores.

Who remembers "The Romagnolis' Table?"

I used to watch cooking shows on PBS watch my grandmother every Sunday after church.

Nathalie Dupree used to get on her nerves because she was always a little sloppy. She blamed it on her not being able to open her eyes the whole way. It would make me laugh so hard.

When Nathalie was over, there was a woman named Marcia (I think) who would come on. My grandmother REALLY hated her because she would cook Amish-ish food. My grandmother was raised Mennonite, so she knew that kind of cooking well. Marcia never did anything right, in her opinion. When she would finish cooking, she'd put on a pair of white gloves and show off some quilt or apple corer she found at a tag sale and act like it was The Shroud of Turin.

WE HATED HER SO MUCH. (And we watched every week)

The Frugal Gormet always gave me the creeps.

Sue Ann Nivens was an expert at making souffles and strawberry swirls. As she liked to say, "What's all this fuss about famine?"

Nathalie "enthusiastically" prepares terrible looking fried okra

No love for Bruno Gerussi?

How about Nick Stellino?

R23, Nigella Lawson is indeed still around. She used to post regularly on Twitter but has moved to Bsky. I don't think she's on TV in America at the moment, used to have shows on PBS from time to time. Still gorgeous & funny, still writes beautifully, & still cooks good food. I'm a fan (as if you couldn't tell).

For Nigella, the revelations during her divorce about her cocaine and cannabis use helped dampen the American appetite for her on TV. I still think she's fabulous, and I really like her writing.

I watched many of them growing up - my mother had these shows on and I got interested. I remember that old Louisiana guy Justin with the suspenders because of the hillbilly way he pronounced a lot of his words and his nonstop jabbering.

Which brings me to Natalie Dupree - her show seemed fancy when I was a kid, but I when I got older and watched her later series of shows, she had turned into a bumbling mess. It was hilarious to watch her fumble around while cooking a dish - someone had the great idea to let her film with no cuts and Natalie had none of the finesse of Martha Stewart. She was always grabbing the wrong ingredient, squinting off-camera at someone, spilling and dropping stuff and making a disastrous mess all over the counter she was working at. She said the phrase "do as I say, not as I do" when she realized that she'd left a key ingredient out at the last second and had handwaved the mistake away. Her counter would look like a bomb had dropped at the end of her episode. What memories!

Does anyone remember that fat Cajun man?

Natalie Dupree was scatterbrained. She refused to take off her big diamond ring and plunged it into watever she was making. She would also forget stuff like most of a pie filling before putting it in the oven and turn around to see the bowl full of the rest of it on the counter.

R38, do you mean Paul Prudhomme? He was hugely fat, I'm shocked to see that he lived to be 75!

The Galloping Gourmet always used "clarified butter". As a result, Graham Kerr still enters my thoughts probably more often than he should.

Yes @R40

R29, Was the show something like "Amish cooking from quilt country"? I remember the lady cooking and then showing off a quilt at the end! I did watch a lot of PBS as a kid/young adult.

[quote]Nigella Lawson ... has moved to Bsky.

Smart lady.

R38 - Yep, and Prudhomme opened a restaurant in NYC called "K-Paul's" on Broadway at Houston Street back in the early 90s. The food was pretty good, as were the bar's offerings.

I just dug out my old Jeff Smith cookbook: "The Frugal Gourmet Cooks Three Ancient Cuisines: China; Greece; Rome."

Adding to OP's list, does anyone remember David Rosengarten?

R45, Yes! I remember David. I loved 'Taste', since it was just him and a camera, and he was so delightfully erudite. He even persuaded me to try sea urchin roe (big mistake).

R23 and R25...Ming was cute. Loved it when his mother was on. You could tell she was proud of him, and he got much from her.

R34, thank you. I learned how to keep pork chops without drying them out from him.

Yan can also be annoying, but I did love when he put his newborn twins in the wok. Does anyone remember Johnathan Von Foundray the completely annoying microwave cook? Or Lynn something or other - the low cholesterol gourmet who was wrapped so tight you couldn't pull a needle out of her ass with a tractor? she used to have guest that she would be openly hostile to - she used to spray romaine lettuce leaves with pan spray instead of using oil in the salad dressing - she was nuts. There was the Frugal Gourmet finger banging his young male staff (and probably Craig too).....The Galloping Gourmet was much better after his heart attack. Anyone remember his wife (Trina?) chocking on one of his creations? Hysterical. Loved Justin Willson HONIONS.......and Paul Prudome who was so fat he had to sit on a rolling stool in the kitchen. Ah the good old days.

R46, Kina the Māori name for sea urchin are very popular in New Zealand. Best eaten in spring when not bitter. I'm a pākahā so like mine wood smoked, squished onto a cracker with lemon, salt and pepper.

Lidia and her bald spot bother me. Makes me think the clump of hair fell in an Italian Wedding Soup.

Not that she's well-known in the US, but no one's mentioned DL favorite Fanny Cradock.

R51, Julia Child mentioned her in one of her programs, and she used a certain accent to refer to her that really intrigued me. Imagine how much fun I enjoyed seeing Fanny for the first time.

Fanny Craddock sounds like what Lauren Bacall would have give her left tit to sound like.

[quote]Yan can also be annoying, but I did love when he put his newborn twins in the wok

Interesting. Very, very interesting.

R48, I never saw Kerr's wife on the "Galloping Gourmet" show, wish I had. She had a lung removed & he became extremely health conscious for both their sakes. The food on those shows wasn't as indulgent but he was still funny. Wikipedia says that his wife died a few years ago & he's turned to religion -- normally, I'd think he must be uptight now but somehow I doubt it with him. Once a jokester, always the same!

I'm another fan of Jeff Smith, The Frugal Gourmet. I last saw him being nominated for a Daytime Emmy (Joan Rivers won).

Many years ago I knew Nathalie Dupree through mutual friends. I had several wonderful meals at her little restaurant out in the suburbs back in the 70s. I was quite sad when she died. I enjoyed her shows back in the day, but I have to agree with what was said up-thread about her fried okra in that video. That looked horrible, and I am a fried okra connoisseur. It looked like she had dipped that okra in nothing more than egg whites. For me to like it the okra must be fully encased in thin crunchy batter fried to just the right level of doneness. The crust must be crunchy but the okra inside must still be moist and not burned to a crisp. It takes talent to properly cook fried okra.

Crazy, I looked up Justin Wilson's macaroni salad recipe this morning. My parents loved all the cooking shows on PBS, so I grew up with a steady stream of Justin, Julia and The Frugal Gourmet playing in the background. The whole thing with Jeff Smith was a shame. His cookbooks were very good, but he couldn't keep his hands to himself.

Marcia Adams had a couple shows. One was Cooking from Quilt Country and the other was Heartland Cooking. Both shows had very cheap production values and were produced by a college town PBS station, although Heartland Cooking would go on location to places like Zingerman’s deli in Ann Arbor or Ann Sathers in Chicago. She seemed like a nice person and seemed to try to blend food and culture, unlike most other tv chefs.

Nathalie Dupree was a local legend in Atlanta, although you had to forgive her being funded by Kroger, the world’s least imaginative super market chain. She definitely had a class a polish and a deft, but klutzy touch that Paula Deen could never match. I think she had a gay husband. She definitely had a huge gay fan base.

I loved Marcia Adams when I was a kid.

Marcia Adams had helmet hair.

Graham Kerr was on in the morning where I lived. In the summer my mom would be watching it and laughing. I started watching it with her. Other than Kerr and Julia Child I don't remember any cooking shows on in our house. I remember my mother watching Child a time or two and saying, "She's smashed!"

R61: It was the 80s.

[quote]Ming is still alive and still talented.

I saw some of Ming's frozen meals at Walmart, next to those from that other "chef," Guy Fieri.

Guy is a purveyor of shit.