Who hasn’t enjoyed a good cooking challenge on the Food Network? Whether you cook for just your family or you are a professional chef who prepares meals for hundreds, programs about good eating are universally appealing. But if you keep your eye on the background, you’ll see that there is more than just food that makes you drool. Many of the shows feature professional kitchens with the best in food prep equipment. Those high-end tools are available to anyone, though, not just chefs. Let’s take a closer look at how Food Network programs showcase the tools the pro use.
Famous Tools
“Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives” is a program in which host Guy Fieri tours the country to highlight some of the best restaurants and dishes in the nation. The charismatic Fieri tells the history of the restaurant, greets the owner and then steps through to the kitchen to watch the chef prepare a signature dish. Throughout the show, viewers get a good look at the types of commercial equipment the professionals use to prepare high-quality, tasty dishes.
On a recent episode, Fieri was in Superior, Wisc., where he stopped at Shorty’s Pizza and Smoked Meat. The head chef, David Andert, prepares delectable meals for up to 500 people per day, and he says he couldn’t do it without an Alto-Shaam Cook & Hold oven. Andert uses the oven to cook vegetables, macaroni and cheese and the signature smoked meat. He credits having the proper equipment as the reason behind the restaurants huge success after only three years in business.
Equipment Tests
“The Kitchen” is another popular Food Network program. On the show, a panel of hosts share simple recipes, sample each other’s creations and demonstrate family cooking methods. The set is a basic home kitchen, and the hosts use professional-grade equipment and tools to create all their dishes. If you want to know the traits of the best salad spinner or how to properly use your oven’s broiler, this is the show for you. Hosts whip up smoothies with blenders you, too, can buy, and they demonstrate the simplest cream-whipping tool when topping a pumpkin pie. The online page for the show lists the professional equipment used in each episode, so you can seek out your own special tools.
Regardless whether you cook for a living or cook for your family, you likely are tempted by the helpful equipment featured on Food Network television shows. When watching, be sure to pay special attention to what’s being displayed in the background. After all, you could bring some of those professional tools into your kitchen space.
