ChineseCookingDemystified
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On Bon Appetit's return, plus some YouTube channels that I think you should watch
🕑 Added 2020-10-27 09:32:51 +0000 UTC[Note: this was also posted on the YouTube community tab, but I wanted to share with you guys too... just in case you didn't use YT on mobile so much]
So, Bon Appetit is back.
We’re certainly not the best people to talk about what happened there – there’s a million other voices that have more educated, more personal, and much more theoretically sound opinions about structural racism in the West, and how it relates to food media. Was Conde Nast’s apology was good enough? I don’t know. I… certainly can’t be judge and jury there. But at the very least, there does seem to be an increased diversity of personalities at BA… which at least from a food-based perspective (an angle I’m much more comfortable judging), IMO always does make for better, more interesting content. So on that front at least - cool.
But I was watching their torched banana cake recipe the other day, and my mind kept on flashing back to Bettina Makalintal’s piece in Vice, “Bon Appetit and the Myth of the Happy Workplace”. In it, she made the analogy that BA occupied a similar sort of cultural space at ‘The Office’ – that sort of mythical, happy workplace with wacky, likable characters.
And that was always where BA video was for me. BA was popcorn entertainment – a happy little world that I could toss on in the background. It was the YouTube food equivalent of a TV show like Parks and Rec, or a video game like Stardew Valley. At the risk of sounding like a snob, I definitely didn’t watch it for the cooking – one look at Chris Morocco’s Mapo Tofu was more than enough for me to overcome my Gell-Mann Amnesia on that front lol. I watched it because you could relate to Claire’s frustrations testing recipes, or Brad’s latest wacky fermentation project. I watched because it was brilliantly edited – it was able to capture all the wholesome authentic ‘goodness’ of a home-based independent YouTuber, only with all the resources of a massive brand with the financial backing of one of the largest media conglomerates in the world.
You could see them cooking in that beautiful test kitchen nestled up in the clouds of midtown Manhattan… and I’m not sure if I’m alone here – a small shred of me, in the back of my mind, would always fantasize about being able to cook up in that test kitchen, alongside that wacky, likable cast of characters. That idea of “maybe if we just got big enough, we could go into that kitchen and show them how to really make Mapo Tofu”… that kind of thing.
The problem with all of that, of course, was that BA test kitchen wasn’t the Pawnee Parks Department or the Stardew Valley community center – it was, indeed, an actual company… with all the inherent toxicity and power dynamics that come along for the ride when you enter that corporate media world. Because of course it was, right? Their brilliant video editors were simply able to manufacture wholesome, authentic-feeling content on an industrial scale. On some level, deep down, we all knew they were pulling a bit of wool over our eyes. That the reality was much uglier than what was on our screens probably should have been patently obvious.
But now… no matter how much better the actual culture of BA may be today than it was a year ago, what’s been seen cannot be unseen. We’ve caught a glimpse of that proverbial man behind the curtain. For me personally at least, it’s gotten impossible to re-suspend my disbelief.
But maybe that’s for the best – because there’s scores of independent creators here on YouTube that have real authentic content that deserves way more eyeballs than Conde Nest. So maybe… I hope that maybe us – as an audience and a community – can try to share and support more independent creators.
So in the comments here, I’m curious to hear about your favorite YouTube cooking channels with less than, say… 50,000 subscribers. I’ll kick it off.
Recently I’ve been enjoying the channel “Made with Lau”. Chinese-American family - the father is a retired chef that immigrated to the US from Toishan and shows how to execute some proper Cantonese homecooking. The son is the editor, and does a simply fantastic job letting his Dad talk for himself in Cantonese - with subtitles – and interspersing it his own English VO in parts (I’m definitely watching and taking notes to see how we can learn from that style for the next Dawei video haha). At the end of the video, the whole family sits down, chats, eats… it all definitely hits that ‘happy wholesome’ part of my brain in the same way that BA did. Also super interesting to peek into that kitchen and learn more about the cooking of the diaspora community. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsIF9vk-I_PV1P-ShDFA84A
Second recommendation is the channel “MiddleEats” – if you’re a subscriber of /r/cooking, you’ve probably seen /u/obieff’s posts… this is his channel. In some ways, I feel he basically took that baton of “crazy in-depth Reddit recipes for a certain area of the world’s cuisine” and perfected the format (by, well, keeping things organized and not being overly rambly like yours truly haha). I’ve never been very familiar with middle eastern food, so I’ve been really enjoying his posts and videos. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWj_rUMGYCP0DjffybE2nbg
Final recommendation is the always-excellent “Elaine Luo”. I might be breaking my own ground rules a bit here because I’m not totally sure how to judge the relative footprint of the blogging world, but Elaine always deserves more views. She’s behind the phenomenal “ChinaSichuanFood” blog, which covers much more than just Sichuan food. If you like our content, you’ll definitely love hers – she’s been at this game for longer and has an enormous backlog of excellent recipes. And as of late, she’s been posting more videos again on YouTube, too. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCly-uUXFCjZ0fiO3or_jnQQ
Comments
Cecilia Tiscornia
Thank you for this thoughtful post, I definitely agree with your analysis. I watch a lot of cooking videos on youtube, especially BA, an I must say I really miss their previous content like Gourmet Makes and It's Alive. I do agree that it feels like watching BA videos won't ever be the same. But with that being said, I think Omnivore's Cookbook has nice content, I enjoy following her on Instagram as well: https://www.youtube.com/user/omnivorescookbook/.
James BL Hollands
Also I use her cookbook more than her youtube, but for South African / Cape Malay food, Fatima is super tasty : https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTZz9mLcccFDRx-yW6HjFVYnF4SXgMLPH
James BL Hollands
My favourite (aside from you) is Cooking With Freddie, she cooks homestyle Haitian food. https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCdEm5PoxBlLRY7cgcR5Qtxw/featured. I'm not sure it's the finest Haitian food but she makes me howl with laughter - in a nice way - at the enthusiasm of her voiceovers and she's produced at least 3 cooking catchphrases for our house. "Don't forget to clean your meat" "Time is an ingedient" and "Let God guide your hand" (when adding spices). Freddie is fab.
Highly recommend Lindsay Ellis's video about Youtube authenticity (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FJEtCvb2Kw) if you haven't already seen it. I don't spend as much time hunting for niche channels as I used to. Most of the small food channels I've subscribed to have blown past 50K. One exception: My Burnt Orange (https://www.youtube.com/user/Myburntorange/videos). Pan-African home cooking, lots of stuff I've never seen before.
I feel similarly about BA. They had people of color before. The problem is they didn't treat them fairly. It makes me wonder if the new stars are treated any different. Besides you guys videos I like Chef Wang and Souped Up Recipes to name a few.
Mike Blaguszewski
This is exactly how I felt. Like, having black chefs and management is exactly what we the audience asked for. And I'm genuinely excited about Chrissy Tracey making some serious vegan cuisine. But the first video they released introducing new employees just felt like they were trying too hard. Very self conscious for what had been a seemingly un-selfconscious channel. And yeah, I don't think we can ever go to back to the light-hearted atmosphere of before; not while feeling authentic.
Mr. Martini
this thread is awesome! thank you everyone!
Thank you for your thoughts! I like that you have redirected our attention, with a fun and positive spin :) The first channel that comes to mind is Fish Sauce Mama https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCffmsVCYQCBfoH3F55lBZig As a gardener and home cook, I enjoy her videos that feature how to grow, harvest, preserve, and cook with fruits and vegetables of Vietnamese Cuisine.
sko buffs
This is great. I was interested in your opinion on BA or else I wouldn't have read it. But what I didn't see coming was your conclusion, proposing a resource I didn't know I needed: A human-curated collection of small channels worth watching. YouTube is always recommending cooking videos at me, but the recommendations tend to come from large channels. Sometimes when searching for something specific I get a small channel with a video but it's often.. not good. This can fill that gap. Thanks.
I don't have a creator to recommend, I just want to say that I really appreciate your thoughtful, kind takes on the social issues that interact with a Chinese cooking youtube channel. You and Steph seem truly lovely and it makes enjoying this channel that much easier <3
I'm a fan of Grace's Japanese Cooking! Found her through a wonderful enoki miso soup recipe: https://youtube.com/c/GracesJapaneseCooking
Olivier
I share the feeling of not being able to go back and enjoy BA the way I had before. Thanks for putting into words what i couldn’t.
