I'm late to the food-on-tv game. I learned a little in school, where we actually had mandatory "home economics" classes that taught basic food safety and a few simple dishes, along with things like balancing a checkbook (yes, there were people who didn't make the connection between that and math class) and basic hand and machine sewing. I learned more from my parents, but mostly I learned from my grandmother.

As a result, I arrived at college in a little better shape than most of my peers, who could barely work a microwave. Driven partially by necessity, they watched a lot of food network back when it was mostly how-to shows and the only "competition" they aired was late-night translations of the Japanese iron chef show.

A decade later, food network was nearly all competition and food-tour shows. They stood up a sister network -- cooking channel or something similar, which seemed to be mostly re-runs of their old how-to shows, some of which are surprisingly good. Unfortunately, it too is falling to the competition tv genre, and if you want actual cooking instruction you have to catch it early morning or late night, when the remaining non-competition shows are still on.

It would be nice if, along with cookbooks, some of those shows were available in complete collections that I could purchase.