Emeril Lagasse. Bobby Flay. Rachael Ray. Giada de Laurentis. All of these names are synonymous with both food and celebrity. More and more as each year passes we are introduced with yet another celebrity chef. Who exactly are these people? And what makes a chef a celebrity? Well, we were really able to answer that question with the introduction of Emeril Lagasse’s groundbreaking show, Emeril Live. In that show he attempted to do what no chef had been successful at before: make cooking into entertainment. Entertainment that hundreds of thousands of viewers tuned into night after night making it one of Food Network’s most popular shows at the time of it’s launching.[1] Lagasse was well known in culinary circles, but really became a household name with the launch of Emeril Live. Using catchphrases such as “Bam!” and “Oh yeah baby” he makes cooking look fun. Soon after came shows like Alton Brown’s Good Eats, which combines cooking and science, and Iron Chef: America. It became clear very quickly what a ludicrous business this could turn into. Today, nearly all of the chefs on Food Network have their own line of cooking tools and/or are currently a spokesperson on TV. Something that originally didn’t make that much money has turned into quite the money maker. Not only for the cable networks, but for television networks as well. In 2005 Rachael Ray launched not only her magazine, but also the exceedingly popular daytime talk show Rachael Ray. The show has since won two Daytime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Talk Show Entertainment and averages about 2.6 million views daily [2]. Somehow in the last five years these culinary giants have won over both our hearts and our bellies.
