Hot Stuff! The Food Network
spicy programming? hot or mild?
2008-05-23
By Ronda Racha Penrice

It’s no secret that Black folks can turn a mean ladle, throw down on Sunday dinner, bake an outrageous 7-Up cake. Except, that is, on television. On the Food Network, cable’s premier culinary destination, let’s just say we’ve been a little MIA. It’s not that we haven’t been on the network; Al Roker and a few others have taken us on many a tour de cuisine. But, in the kitchen, as hosts at the level of a Rachel Ray or a Bobby Flay, we’ve been hard to find. This season, however, the Food Network has certainly spiced up its lineup with not one but two shows featuring Black chefs and it’s about time.

Down Home with the Neelys with Pat and Gina Neely debuted in February and Cooking for Real with Sunny Anderson rolled out in April. Those in Memphis know Neely’s Bar-B-Que well. Apparently, the folks in Nashville couldn’t go without their Neelys either and got a location of their own. Paula Deen, the reigning queen of Southern cooking gave the couple a huge boost by featuring them on her show, Paula’s Party. Anyone who has tuned into the Neely’s show knows that “Down Home” isn’t just a title; Pat and his wife Gina are certainly very comfortable and familiar and that probably makes a number of us very uncomfortable, especially when Gina gets really “go, girl”. Others of us will find it refreshing that Gina strives to be her crazy self and her husband loves her for it.

Sunny has a different pedigree. She’s better known as the hip-hop radio personality who loves to cook. The one-time DJ at New York’s famed Hot 97 got her big food break when she first appeared on Emeril Live in 2005. Last year, she co-hosted the Food Network’s Gotta Get It, a series of specials about the latest kitchen must-haves. But Sunny doesn’t come across as someone in the hip-hop industry. Yes, she wears colorful jogging suits from time to time but that’s not what comes across the most. Instead, she’s simply down-to-earth and comfortable. Sunny grew up in the military and even served in the Air Force herself. It was while she was in the military that she actually got into radio. She also indulged her inner food. Because she moved so often, her food repertoire is eclectic. One day she might whip up French toast and another she’s recreating Mexican street food.

BBQ is the Neelys’ mainstay, of course, and they, like Paula Deen, specialize in comfort food, which, to some of us, is just food you actually enjoy eating. What makes the Neelys most distinctive is the fact that they are married and they actually cook together as a unit. Pat and Gina dated in high school but went their separate ways after graduation. Their ten-year reunion brought them back together. By this time, Gina had learned to cook. In a clip on the Food Network’s website, Gina boasts about making “Get Yo Man Chicken” and getting her man, Pat. In these days of the endless statistics of how many Black folks aren’t getting married, it’s refreshing to see a successful husband-and-wife team getting along.

Sunny cooks by herself, which is not unusual in the Food Network’s lineup.  But, I can’t recall any of them being young, Black and female since the Food Network debuted in 1993. And, of course, there’s the more worldly, sophisticated B. Smith, who started outas more of a home decor maven, but has since expanded her skills as culinary master. That distinction was revolutionary when she first entered the game since, let’s face it, up until that point, the predominating image of the Black female culinary genius was Aunt Jemima. It’s probably the reason why her show, B. Smith with Style, went the syndicated route when she debuted it in 1997.

Now, in all honesty, Sunny probably owes her Food Network shot to G. Garvin, whose show Turn Up the Heat with G. Garvin is one of TV One’s pioneering series. In many ways, she’s his female counterpart. They both whip up meals that casual outside observers would deem unlikely for anyone anchored in the “young, black and flashy” world of hip-hop. But hip-hop is very multi-cultural, appealing to youth all over the globe. Sunny is more laidback and considerably more low-key than G. Garvin, but she and the Neelys showing up on The Food Network during the same season strongly drives home the distinction we are constantly trying to make to the rest of the world: there is no one way to be Black. So it’s great that the Neelys can be “down-home” and Sunny can be “hip-hop and worldly”. In the year of Barack Obama, where the unlikely seems more plausible every day, it’s no surprise that food and the Food Network have also switched up styles.   

Catch the Neelys Saturdays at 11am/10amC and Sunny Sundays at 10:30am/9:30amC on the Food Network.

Veteran freelance writer and self-diagnosed television junkie Ronda Racha Penrice is the author of African American History For Dummies, as well as a lover of great food.

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