Food Jammers

[_john]

Food Jammers is a new show airing in Canada on Food Network. From the show description:

FOOD JAMMERS: The Duct Tape Garage Gourmets Take on FOOD

TORONTO (Canada) – November 10, 2005 – Peace Point

Entertainment Group is excited to announce that their newest show

FOOD JAMMERS has been picked up for a full season of 13 half-hour

episodes launching spring 2006 on Canada’s FOOD Network.

FOOD JAMMERS is not a typical ‘stand and stir’ food show. It’s what

you get when you mix the hit mechanic series American Chopper with

the hot food series The Naked Chef. Hosted by three everyday guys:

Micah, the 29 year old, trucker-hat sporting dj-by-night; Chris, the

quieter, more reserved artist and; Nobu, the aspiring actor always in

search of culinary delights. The three buddies hook-up on weekends to

jam –we’re not talking garage band jamming, we’re talking food

jamming.

What is it? Food jamming is what they call their weekend sessions of

pure culinary creativity. They love to create amazing food but they’re

just a couple of single guys…in their world that means they don’t have

the fancy kitchen to cook in or the recipes, appliances and utensils to

cook with –hey, they barely have cash for the ingredients! The drama

lies in ‘Can they do it’ while the learning lies in ‘How they do it’.

Lack of conventional resources is no deterrent for these lowbrow

gourmets – once they start jammin’ and their creativity starts flowing

these guys will try anything to create the perfect food item. They may

have false starts and need to go back to the drawing board, but with

their minds set to the task, there’s no food limitation they can’t

overcome and no conventional piece of kitchen equipment they can’t

make from stuff found in their garage, the hardware store or at the

Goodwill. You’ve heard of duct tape mechanics? Well consider these

fellas duct tape gourmets! These culinary engineers think up designs

for everything from retrofit coffee roasters to homemade ice cream

I am going to hold back my opinion and see what other people have to say. Has anyone seen this show?

[Anna N]

I have watched 2 episodes (perhaps 3 as they are eminently forgettable) and wonder why? Why did I watch them and why did they televise them? The point is lost on me.

[Jason Perlow]

I haven't seen the show, but actually I like the concept. That doesn't mean that FNC can execute it well, though. You need the right cast of people with the right skills and right on screen chemistry.

I think a good example of this would be like Discovery's MYTHBUSTERS. The two guys in that show have an amazing rapport with each other and watching them interact is I think at least 50 percent of the appeal of the show.

[angrykoala]

I've seen all the episodes, but I don't enjoy the show at all. I'm just addicted to FoodTV. The "food" they end up with is ALWAYS extremely mediocre at best. And like others, I'm left wondering what the point is.

They're ambitious blokes who clearly have a great deal of engineering intelligence, but that does not make good food. And for a network that is supposedly focused on food, I'm left cold. I think this series would be more at home on the Discovery channel.

I'm reminded of last year's summer flop series: "Man Made Food", which also blew.

[Shalmanese]

I like the concept but the actual execution seems a bit contrived. They should just skip the artificially forced spontenaity and artifice of "just happening" to have the right piece of equipment lying around. Still, I have to admit I lust after that dehyrated fruit jacket.

[johnsmith45678]

I like the show. It's like Good Eats goes to mechanical engineering school. The recipes aren't worth much, but it's interesting to see how stuff (food AND equipment) is made. Still, I won't be drilling holes in my fridge or building ten foot long sausage cookers...

The dehydated turkey was hideous.

[ZenKimchi]

Yeah, I've watched a few of their episodes, and even though I found their ideas interesting, the presentation had me rolling my eyes. It would be more fun if they just cut the "stoner dudes going camping" act and just present their concepts.

"Kick the Can Ice Cream" was a perfect example of where the "plot" made them look like morons. They wanted ice cream to go with their rhubarb pie. So they had the idea to make ice cream in a coffee can. They went to the trouble of visiting a farm to buy eggs, but the farmer wasn't allowed to sell them milk. So they went to a local store to buy milk.

Um, DUH, they coulda bought a half gallon of ice cream while they were there, ya think? Is "kick the can ice cream" so fabulous that you want to waste your entire day making it instead of just grabbing some vanilla from the freezer case?

That has to be some major stoner cravings.

[johnsmith45678]

Making your own food from scratch (at least once) is vastly more rewarding than just lazily buying it pre-packaged. Assuming of course you have the time.

[Ling]

I've seen the episode (the first and only one I've seen, btw) where they're trying to construct a cake shaped to look like their beloved beater of a car. They decide to put that cake-car on some sort of rudimentary machine they build, so it'll move up and down as if on hydraulics. What's the point? The cake-car was hideous, and I can't imagine a group of people in their late 20s (?) being amused by this ugly, moving cake!

[johnsmith45678]

I was! Pretty amazing it didn't go flying all over the place too...

[Khadija]

I'm surprised by reactions to this show. I was prepared to hate it. I have become really sick of Food Network, and when I heard that their new target market is young men, I was ready to cancel my subscription. My partner, a young man who is not especially interested in watching food shows, convinced me that, for the extra seven bucks a month, we might as well keep FN. It's not like I watch anything else (except the CBC).

So, I watched the first episode of (kick the can ice cream), ready to be mad about it. Guess what? I thought that it was kind of fun. I watched a couple more episodes, and thought they were fun too. The turkey looked gross, but it was a funny idea. I'm in my late twenties, and I know a lot of young guys who act like that, and who do things like that. The guys I know would not have bought the ice cream from the store, either. And lots of them don't care about whether food is beautiful, and would have thought the hydraulic car cake was hilarious.

I read an article about the show, and apparently those guys had been doing similar food projects for their own amusement, a tv producer friend found out about it, and asked them to do the show (the actual term "food jamming" was apparently invented for tv). Obviously, many aspects are contrived, but the whole idea of those kind of guys doing that kind of thing makes sense to me. My favourite parts are when they are doing something, and one of them hits upon a moment of realisation of how ridiculous their project is, and starts laughing uncontrollably. Maybe it's just because wacky young guys doing weird projects for fun are so familiar to me, and it takes a certain kind of person to find them kind of endearing.

Of course, it's a silly show, and they overdo the whole "stoner guys" routine, but it's tv. I think the show is actually making me embrace Food Network as a guilty pleasure.

[ZenKimchi]

You hit it right on the head.

I want to like the show. It's the contrived bits and the "camp rats" stereotypes (as in, "Dude, let's get some X-Treme Fajitas and Mountain Dew and surf out of an airplane") that actually take the fun out of it.

They stopped eating pie to go around town to get ingredients for ice cream.

Nothing stops me from eating pie.

[Keith Talent]

The looks of love respect and admiration that hat wearing indie loser gives long blond haired emo dork whenever he opens his mouth to voice some complete obvious point creeps me out. Next season is on Pridevision, I guarantee. Plus the dialogue is completely inanane. "We should make some tomato sauce, what do we need?" "Uhhh, dudes, wicked idea, but we should get some tomatoes!" "Whoa." (Previous line spoken with Keanu like inflection.)

Food Canada somehow manages to find men that speak and realte to each other like no other men in the world. Man Made Food did make Food Jammers look like Cooking with Jacques and Julia though.

[johnsmith45678]

Heh, that was awesome they built their own pizza oven.

The show's a great counterpoint to pretentious chefs who take themselves too seriously.

[Keith Talent]

No, the show's a great counterpoint to people that like to eat good food.

[Badiane]

I particularly loathe the long blond haired emo dork. And if the new FN target is young men, should it not be a group of chicks from Earls cooking trout on the engine block while they drive around town searching for some boys to buy them drinks?

Kadija said "I'm in my late twenties, and I know a lot of young guys who act like that, and who do things like that." Ummm...yeah, Kadija...and they are precisely the people that grown ups want to take outside and bitchslap some sense into. Takes a certain kind of person to find them endearing indeed...someone on enough mood altering medication would probably find Emo just precious when he chortles "and I thought we were going to drink beer all day". Emo and his pals should get jobs. Then they could afford to buy actual food preparation equipment and perhaps some decent ingredients.

The show is a great counterpoint to people who aren't auditioning for the next installment of Jackass.

[Keith Talent]

The post so nice it bore repeating twice.

Kadija said "I'm in my late twenties, and I know a lot of young guys who act like that, and who do things like that."  Ummm...yeah, Kadija...and they are precisely the people that grown ups want to take outside and bitchslap some sense into.  Takes a certain kind of person to find them endearing indeed...someone on enough mood altering medication would probably find Emo just precious when he chortles "and I thought we were going to drink beer all day".  Emo and his pals should get jobs.  Then they could afford to buy actual food preparation equipment and perhaps some decent ingredients. 

The show is a great counterpoint to people who aren't auditioning for the next installment of Jackass.

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[Khadija]

The friends I associate with those guys on Food Jammers do have jobs, are well educated, pay taxes, and are considered smart, useful members of society by any interpretation of conventional standards. They like to do silly projects on their days off, much like I like to do things like make duck confit if I don't have to work. I'd rather make duck confit than make "kick-the-can" ice cream, but I certainly don't think that makes me a better, more mature, or more hard-working person. Maybe doing things like volunteer work or learning to speak Russian is more virtuous than making kick-the-can ice cream. Indulging in a passion for food, even "good," "tasteful" food, not so much. I don't see any reason to treat those guys from Food Jammers differently. Believe it or not, they have "respectable" day-jobs too.

As I said in my first post, I find their whole routine overdone, and I assume that they are being directed to ham it up for the cameras (they have said as much in an interview I read). If you just think they are annoying, that doing experiments for a bit of meaningless fun is a waste of time, or that the show exemplifies bad taste and not real cooking, that's your business. I don't really get why it bothers you so much, but I can appreciate the annoyance that comes with the view that the Food Network is not really putting out good programs about food.

But it strikes me as a pretty egregious leap of reasoning to infer from a short observation of some guys acting like goofs to the idea that they, and all people who act in a similar fashion, are jobless, moronic bums who do nothing in life but drink beer. Sure, they appear not to have tons of money. That tends to happen to a lot us in our late twenties who, being immature losers, didn't manage to save a lot of cash for kitchen appliances during university (or college) and grad school. But what do I know? I probably lack the incisive perception of a real "grown up," like you.

Edited May 27, 2006 by Khadija (log)

[Khadija]

The looks of love respect and admiration that hat wearing indie loser gives long blond haired emo dork whenever he opens his mouth to voice some complete obvious point creeps me out. Next season is on Pridevision, I guarantee. Plus the dialogue is completely inanane. "We should make some tomato sauce, what do we need?" "Uhhh, dudes, wicked idea, but we should get some tomatoes!" "Whoa." (Previous line spoken with Keanu like inflection.)

Food Canada somehow manages to find men that speak and realte to each other like no other men in the world. Man Made Food did make Food Jammers look like Cooking with Jacques and Julia though.

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Just what is your point? You seem to want to say something like: a) These guys fit some "dumb" stereotype, or b) These guys seem to fit some "queer" stereotype? -- Or maybe you are just expressing a combination of the two observations?

You say that Food Network manages to find men that speak and relate to each other like no other men. Does that mean that no other men relate to eachother like dumbasses, or do you mean that no other men relate to eachother like the "kind-of-dumbasses-who-should-be-on-Pridevision"? If the former, then, based on the evidence all around us, you're clearly wrong. If the latter, this board is not the place for my response.

Edited May 27, 2006 by Khadija (log)

[Badiane]

Oh the righteous indignation of youth.

Clearly you are part of the new FN demographic...and I am not. I may never recover.

Oh...no...wait...my husband just cracked a bottle of Dom and spooned some caviar into a dish...anddddd....I'm over it.

[Khadija]

Oh the righteous indignation of youth. 

Clearly you are part of the new FN demographic...and I am not.  I may never recover. 

Oh...no...wait...my husband just cracked a bottle of Dom and spooned some caviar into a dish...anddddd....I'm over it.

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You're right, I repent. You're so impressive. And I will never understand, because all I do is watch Food Network and drink beer and feel self righteous. It would be so nice to have so many better things to do than act goofy with friends -- things like: make fun of people who I presume aren't refined enough to appreciate, or able to attain, the pretenious, boring "luxuries" that I need to parade around to strangers on the internet. It would be so cool to be so crappy at inductive reasoning that, like magic, I can make myself believe my life is better than all those people I've never met.

Get a grip. I think the last time I watched tv was when I saw that episode of Food Jammers, and that was a month ago. I hate the Food Network, just like I hate most tv, which is part of what I tried to say in my original post. I want educational food programs. I made some small point about guiltily thinking the show was kind of cute, and you take it upon yourself to moralise and attack all kinds of ridiculously false assumptions about me and my friends. And you're calling me self-righteous? Please. Maybe you should slow down on the "Dom".

Edited May 28, 2006 by Khadija (log)

[johnsmith45678]

Well put, Khadija. The guys seem pretty smart, and definitely have DIY know-how. It's not a serious cooking show, more like "cooking by mechanical engineering students" or maybe "monster kitchen." (heh) The 3D pizza reached a new level of goofiness. The show is dumb fun, with some interesting info on making different types of food and equipment. It doesn't annoy me. Rachael Ray - now THERE'S somebody who's annoying.

But, I don't know if I'd want these guys in a professional kitchen when the heat is on. I once had a hippie girl like them on my crew who was out in her own world, in her own time-zone, even when the rush was on. She drove others who relied on her crazy. But everybody still liked her, since she was pretty nice and somewaht cool.

And, btw, what exactly does "emo" mean?

Edited May 27, 2006 by johnsmith45678 (log)

[Khadija]

Thanks, johnsmith45678. I wouldn't even want those guys in my home kitchen. One of my best friends (a woman) lived with a bunch of guys who were sort of like that for a year, during our undergrad. She had fun for about a week. Those guys tried to deep fry everything (bagels was a pretty weird one). They also set up a badminton court in the dining room, for about a month. My girlfriend was not at all amused, and she swore off roomates after that.

I'm not very familiar with DIY as an ideology, but I think there is something really cool about doing things yourself for fun and educational purposes. I don't think those guys care much about making great food, at all. But I think they want to get a better sense of how food and food appliances "work," which I find a lot more appealing than watching Rachael Ray show you how to make a 30-minute salad out of bagged letuce and pre-cooked shrimp. Plus, those guys are making use of skills that I just don't have, which is kind of interesting (I think one teaches design and another is an architect). I always do things like bake my own bread, even though I have access to bakeries that make better bread than I can make, because I want to learn about how bread baking "works." I see their aims as sort of analagous.

[Gul_Dekar]

Since I just recently learned this slang term a while ago, here's the definition of emo.

Anyway, watched the show a couple of times. The concept's not too bad, although I can't get over the stoner dude personas they project and how they seem to want to show people that they really are 'COOL' with the camera angles and various stuff that they do. Besides, the DIY ice cream machine with the freezer bit was just a bit silly considering you could probably spend less for an ACTUAL ice cream machine instead of wrecking a perfectly good fridge. Doesn't it ruin the insulation some bit and make the motor work more thus increasing your electricity bill? I guess sometimes I just don't get stuff like this...

Although in the end, it's just TV. If you don't like a show, just don't watch it. The main guy, Nobu Adilman, plays a privates-exposing drug dealer on Trailer Park Boys btw, which weirds me out a bit personally considering he's dealing with food now!

Edited May 27, 2006 by Gul_Dekar (log)

[Khadija]

Since I just recently learned this slang term a while ago, here's the definition of emo.

Anyway, watched the show a couple of times. The concept's not too bad, although I can't get over the stoner dude personas they project and how they seem to want to show people that they really are 'COOL' with the camera angles and various stuff that they do. Besides, the DIY ice cream machine with the freezer bit was just a bit silly considering you could probably spend less for an ACTUAL ice cream machine instead of wrecking a perfectly good fridge. Doesn't it ruin the insulation some bit and make the motor work more thus increasing your electricity bill? I guess sometimes I just don't get stuff like this...

Although in the end, it's just TV. If you don't like a show, just don't watch it.  The main guy, Nobu Adilman, plays a privates-exposing drug dealer on Trailer Park Boys btw, which weirds me out a bit personally considering he's dealing with food now! 

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I really don't care for Trailer Park Boys, so, thankfully, I'll probably never see Nobu "expose" himself. It doesn't surprise me that he's on that show, though. My partner recognised him right away from other CBC broadcasting. I suspect that Nobu is not one of the original food project guys, and that he was brought on the show to be the primary host. Unlike the other two, his background is in media, and he doesn't have much to say about the engineering of the contraptions. The other two always talk to each other about that stuff, and they don't even seem to try to speak to the camera. Nobu is conspicuously more articulate than the other two (not a big feat), and he tends to be the one who speaks to the camera. This might be part of the reason the dynamics between the three are so awkward. But that's all conjecture.

The wasted fridge didn't really bother me, because I assumed it was a "found object," or at least a fridge on its last legs. That's a good point about the electricity bill, though. I think it's pretty silly and wasteful of them always to buy their meat from an organic butcher (given what they do with the meat). But if I had a tv show and an organic butcher wanted to give me free products in exchange for putting his shop on my show, I would probably go for it.