Cooking Shows Inspire a New Generation of Chefs

Forget cartoons—more and more children and teens are gravitating toward cooking shows and learning that time spent in the kitchen can be both rewarding and fun. Food Network spokesperson Carrie Welch, cited in the Hartford Courant, reports that children aged 2 to 17 make up 11 percent of the network's viewing audience, with more than 40,000 young people watching their shows.

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In the Hartford area, teenage cooks say they are inspired by a wide range of celebrity chefs, from Rachael Ray to Gordon Ramsay and Emeril Lagasse—not to mention all those Iron Chefs. They get their tips not only from television shows, but also by cooking at home for their families and taking community cooking classes. Some of those same young people have ambitions to attend culinary school and become celebrity chefs themselves. Even teachers are borrowing a few strategies from Food Network shows, incorporating "cake throw-downs" and Iron-Chef-style competitions into the high school and middle school cooking classroom.

"We hear all the time that parents and kids love to watch Food Network together," says Bob Tuschman, the Food Network's senior vice president of programming and production. "It's gratifying to know our cooking shows inspire and empower kids."

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