Patavisions » cooking http://www.patavisions.com/blog Survey of the imagination Mon, 04 Jan 2010 04:07:26 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9 en hourly 1 Crypto Produce Placement on Top Chef http://www.patavisions.com/blog/2008/04/03/produce-placement-on-top-chef/ http://www.patavisions.com/blog/2008/04/03/produce-placement-on-top-chef/#comments Fri, 04 Apr 2008 02:44:57 +0000 ifss http://www.patavisions.com/blog/?p=10 I have been watching Top Chef’s season 4. I don’t watch reality shows. I never quite saw the point. Top Chef though has always resonated with me. Partially because I like the collision of craft, art, theory, spectacle, and business that the chefs have to deal with.

Sounds familiar?

My reality TV guilt justification out of the way, I have noticed something strange on Top Chef season. I think that there is some sort of produce product placement going on. We are 4 episodes into the season and certain vegetables keep popping up. Sure, these are specialized guys and gals, with more advanced palettes than your average bear, but how many times should jichima and other weird veggies show up in one season?

I haven’t been keeping exact count, but I think it has been featured in the recipes in at least in 2 episodes
so far. Weirdly enough, it is hard to get an easy to read list of dishes per episode. The Bravo site is very nice looking, but you can’t just get a list. You have to read through it recipe by recipe and the recipes from different episodes are all mixed together.

Fifty percent seems like a lot.

Is there a secret crypto-produce lobby that is paying Bravo, Whole Foods, and Top Chef’s producers to include these vegetables in the show?

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