In the 19-minute-and-27-second show, Kennedy warns that he’s going to travel the country visiting chefs and cooking with them. Future guests will include chef Robert Irvine of Restaurant: Impossible, and, I’m hoping, Kid Rock teaching Kennedy how to cook with raw milk while lifting weights in jeans.
The excellent theme music, which is not yet available on Spotify but is a four-second repeated loop of something John Holmes would enjoy if he were alive today, is unfortunately played too loudly to allow viewers to hear even a man who doesn’t have spasmodic dysphonia.
Which is a shame, because while Kennedy says less than any cooking host I’ve ever seen, he does drop some knowledge. Did you know that Kennedy was handed a 453-page dietary-guidelines report from the Biden administration that “reflected the same kind of mercantile impulses that had put Froot Loops on top of the pyramid”? I think he was referring to the “Bread, Cereal, Rice & Pasta Group,” and he meant “bottom” instead of “top” of the pyramid, but still, 453 is way too many pages to read.
Kennedy’s guest is chef Andrew Gruel, who founded the fast-casual seafood chain Slapfish, judged the Food Network’s Food Truck Face Off, and is a Republican member of the Huntington Beach City Council, the same body that once included UFC fighter Tito Ortiz.
In his white, modern Southern California home kitchen, Gruel promises not to cook anything “overly intellectual,” choosing wild salmon cakes accompanied by an arugula salad with white beans and green apple, which he says we can make for $4.91 a person. Gruel keeps saying he’s “addicted” to things, such as seafood, which I personally wouldn’t have said in front of a guy who was addicted to things such as “heroin” and “cocaine.” But Kennedy seemed unmoved. As he did with all of Gruel’s cooking.
In fact, when Kennedy was given one task, to mix the salad, he stirred it endlessly with a spoon like he was making risotto. If this is “Let’s get cooking!,” then anyone can do it, even if they’re still on heroin. But Gruel is understandably nervous about cooking for a dignitary for the first time, which you can tell when he says, “To me, apples are as iconic as apple pie.” Our government is not wasting money in the editing room.
The cakes look good, with the smart use of nutritional yeast to punch up the umami. But Kennedy seems to have trouble choking down even one bite, as he says that it’s a good source of protein. If you can’t get any other source of protein. “We have the lowest level of cattle herds in 100 years,” he says. “The cost of meat has gone up. We’re doing everything that we can in the administration to bring that down and increase the size of the herd. But until that happens, this is a fantastic option.”
Eager to make the salmon cakes, I asked Gemini to approximate what it would cost me to buy the ingredients. It came up with $6.44 if I can score $15-a-pound salmon and use five ounces per serving. That would deliver nearly 40 grams of protein, though it’s light on fiber.
I believe that The Real Food Show has a real chance to be as big as Housekeepers’ Chat, the Department of Agriculture’s radio show that ran from 1926 to 1934. In each 15-minute episode, Aunt Sammy (Uncle Sam’s fictional wife, because apparently he was so egotistical that he married someone with a very similar name) would give ladies new recipes for chicken shortcake or creamed finnan haddie. The scripts, which were read by actors at local stations, also spun current events into ridiculous fantasies. When Queen Marie of Romania visited the U.S. in 1926, Aunt Sammy said, “She didn’t come to America especially to see me, but I thought she might drop in to discuss household problems. I have a new recipe, called Peach Dainty, that I’ve been saving for her. I am sure the King would like it, and the Prince and Princess, too.” It’s comforting that there’s a long tradition behind The Real Food Show.
