Eeeeek! Kiddie Celebrity Chefs?

[cbread]

Frightening items in this article. www.slate.com/id/2212816/pagenum/all

[Margo]

I am SO annoyed that the NY Times Magazine is contributing one Sunday per month to this trend.

[cbread]

I posted the topic "Eeeeek! Kiddie Celebrity Chefs?" after receiving the link to an article in Slate Magazine online about children cooking, having cooking shows and reviewing restaurants. I had no idea that there was a youngster with a television cooking show. and, I was surprised to read, children getting visibility for reviewing food - visibility including coverage in the New York Times and CBS's morning show.

Following the links in the Slate article demonstrated that these are not your garden variety McCheezeburg kids, but for their ages, simultaneously very accomplished and unusually mature. Nothing in the articles gave me anything but admiration for the kids themselves. Nonetheless, the information gave me a media bellyache. It is the adults around these children that make me wonder.

I can't help but suspect that some part of the interest generated by all this is a titillation from watching precocious kids as foodie freaks of nature. Sort of a “watch the wonderchild” entertainment playing off the current food + celebrity mania. The media coverage of these kids seems somehow - I can't think of a better term - pornographic.

In the field of visual arts there has been similar coverage of other unlikely or precocious wonders; the autistic child who has a gallery show of his/her art and sells at mid-career adult artist prices; the zoo elephant who's "paintings" get frenzied media attention and sell for more than peanuts.

The kids in Slate’s article are good kids. It concerns me that the nature of the attention given them is misdirected.

[gfweb]

Shirley Temple has already come back as Rachel Ray. Why not this?

[cbread]

I hate to say this, and suspect I will be deluged by irate Egulleters, but even RR makes more sense to me than a kiddie chef.

RR doesn't suit my need for food info or my "aesthetics" but at least she is just a person talking about food. I'd rather have her get a show than a child put on a pedestal as a gee whiz curiosity.

[rconnelly]

the parents should be tried for abuse.

No four or eight or even twelve year old has the maturity to critique or cook meals.

Yeah, it is fun to help in the kitchen, but really now, this is beyond ridiculous.

I love kids but not when they are mini-adults. UGH!