When the pastry chef turned educator Derek Corsino walked on to the set of the Food Network’s hit series Spring Baking Championship, he didn’t expect much. “I knew from all my previous work [on TV] that my life was not going to change at all,” said Corsino, who currently teaches culinary arts at Healdsburg high school in California. “I’m just some guy at the end of the day. I went on that show for my students. It was peak Covid and was a great morale boost when it aired in the spring.”
Corsino, who was a finalist in 2021, said some of his fellow contestants believed they were going to get a lot of business from appearing on the baking competition show, but soon received a reality check. “You’re not going to get business from this because your business name is going to flash really fast on screen,” he said, noting that one competition series he previously filmed was canceled halfway through the season, so no one ever saw his episode. “You’re here because of your own ego.”
While television cooking competitions are often thought of as a high-stakes, life-changing experience that can make your career, they often don’t, and contestants say that much of the industry success they’ve had in the notoriously competitive and fickle food world is the result of their own hustling and hard work.
“Looking back at it, I think I probably could have done a better job capitalizing on [my wins], said the chef Palak Patel. In 2013, not long after finishing culinary school, she faced off against three more experienced male chefs to win an episode of Chopped by creating dishes like a seared fluke with toasted coriander seeds that one judge deemed “masterful”. She was then victorious in Beat Bobby Flay in 2014 with a signature north Indian chicken curry with cashew cream sauce. Confident and collected during filming, she jokingly told the Iron Chef: “Stick with tacos, let me handle curry.”
The wins did not immediately change Patel’s life, but she did get more calls for private chef events and had some talks with talent agencies. Her TV résumé helped years later when it came to pursuing other projects such as opening (and later closing) a plant-based Indian street food restaurant and getting a book deal. “I didn’t realize what a big deal [the wins were]. It’s not like 17 agents were calling me.” Patel, who was also a finalist on Food Network Star in 2018, said she sees her television competition career as a story of grit rather than one of overnight stardom.
Since competing, the telegenic chef has amassed more than 20,000 followers on Instagram, where she shares Indian-inspired recipes and partners with brands such as Whole Foods and HelloFresh. Her first cookbook will be published next year.
When aspiring chef-testants approach Patel for advice, she’s quick to remind them that cooking competition series are “entertainment shows first and cooking shows second”. Other former contestants echoed the same sentiment.
“Being really savvy about why you go on and being really mindful about cultivating your brand with the exposure is really important,” said Patel, who later used her background in corporate marketing to approach companies for collaborations and partnerships. “You have to make that moment work for you and be able to go back to your life or thing that you’re orchestrating and be able to do that without feeling that’s going to be the end all be all.”
Tasha Oren, director of film and media studies at Tufts University and author of the new book Food TV, which examines how culinary culture became part of pop culture, said that television appearances can strengthen a professional chef’s branding and public relations, but that the experience is often different for non-professional chefs who may be expecting to find an industry career after being on the small screen.
“TV can only help in amplifying a story you have – it can’t help amplify your skill,” Oren said. “When we think about what we expect from a celebrity chef, we are really not talking about somebody who is good at cooking, but really good at being on TV.”
Former cooking competitors are quick to dispel myths about their appearances on popular shows. Contestants said they don’t get paid unless they win and that they don’t receive royalty payments even though series are often in reruns or endlessly streamed. There are also 4.00am wakeup calls, long days of filming, sleepless nights and disagreements with production – working conditions the public is learning more about as some reality cast members have called to unionize in order to demand change.
When Corsino was cast on Spring Baking Championship at the last minute, he quickly realized he wasn’t going to be “the favorite”. “Usually when someone is a teacher they don’t make it very far,” he said. “At the end of the day, I got a vibe that no matter how hard I tried, there was no way I was going to win.” Some online fans thought Corsino was robbed.
Because of his TV experience, Corsino was familiar with the role production plays in a show’s storytelling. He previously took a long break from appearing on competition shows because he wasn’t happy with a particular production company’s behavior. “They tried to put words in my mouth and make me the enemy,” said Corsino. “I wasn’t comfortable with an executive producer giving me and my team a hard time for doing a good job and getting along. They were creating drama for the sake of TV drama and I was not for that. As a result my airtime was noticeably less than the rest of the team.”
Ali Khan first appeared on the Food Network as a gregarious challenger on Grill It! with Bobby Flay in 2008. “I thought when I did the show someone would find another spot for me,” said Khan, who has worked in TV development for Alton Brown and Jeff Mauro. “It doesn’t work that way – you really have to push your way in and there’s lots of highs and lows.”
After his episode aired, Khan kept busy creating his own video content, blogging about food, working as a restaurant researcher on the reality series $24 in 24 and taking meetings with TV executives. It would take him about six years from first appearing as a cooking competitor to filming his own pilot hosting the Cooking Channel’s Cheap Eats, which ran for five seasons.
The TV personality said that hit shows such as Guy’s Grocery Games or Chopped, which have a built-in audience that’s loyal and dedicated, can certainly help contestants in their offscreen careers thanks to the shows’ reach. “It just airs and airs and airs,” he said. “Food TV has made people who probably wouldn’t have had a huge career have a monstrous career.”
Take Kristen Kish, the winner of season 10 of Top Chef who is taking over from Padma Lakshmi as host of the show. The popular chef and restaurateur was a no-brainer for executives, and is expected to breathe new life into the ageing Bravo show, which has helped make competitors like Kish culinary stars.
Cooking competitions shows such as Iron Chef America, MasterChef, Chopped and others first hit screens in the 2000s and newer series such as Netflix’s Is It Cake? and Hulu’s Secret Chef have offered fresh takes on the format. But the Food Network, which Oren characterized as deeply conservative and not doing much to bring in new audiences, is seemingly at an inflection point in today’s more democratized media world where people are racking up millions of followers on YouTube and TikTok.
“You don’t have to be a chef or own a restaurant to be a food star any more,” said Oren. “If you have personality and an ability to present food and cooking in a certain way, audiences will flock to you. TV is no longer the place where we learn how to cook – it’s where we consume stories about food, restaurants and competitions.”
