Around the beginning of the year, laid low by a winter cold and trolling the cable television channels, I watched a few episodes of a show called The Worst Cooks in America. The show is in its second season on The Food Network, but this was my first encounter with it. The premise is this: 16 self-professed lousy cooks go to "boot camp" to learn kitchen skills from Anne Burrell and Robert Irvine, two of the network's celebrity chefs. By the end of the season, two contestants, whose culinary aptitude purportedly will have improved dramatically, duke it out for the "championship" (despite their progress during the preceding weeks, do they win the dubious honor of being called the Worst Cook in America?) and a $25,000 prize.

At first, this sounded like a brilliant idea, and one that the U.S. could use right now. A recent Nielsen survey revealed that Americans spend roughly 35 hours a week parked in front of the tube. Millions of us sit on the couch and watch other people exercise on The Biggest Loser; then, apparently, we change the channel and watch other people cook. "The Food Network has helped to transform cooking from something you do into something you watch," Michael Pollan has declared, citing the fact that an average American spends less than half an hour in the kitchen every day ("less than half the time it takes to watch a single episode of Top Chef," Pollan points out). Things have certainly changed in the decades since Julia Child inspired hordes of homemakers (my mother being one) to become more interested in, and confident about, cooking.

Let's skip for now the fact that numerous recent studies have indicated that a sedentary lifestyle (watching two hours or more of television a day or spending most of your day sitting in front of a small screen) can be so detrimental to your health that getting regular exercise may not be able to mitigate the effects. To me, the idea of a show that encourages people to improve their skills in the kitchen seemed like a move in the right direction. Kitchen-phobes at home might think, "If these poor saps can learn to cook, then so can I." Or at least that's what I was hoping.

Instead, The Worst Cooks in America turns out to be one of the most mean-spirited shows I've bothered to watch. The contestants are ridiculed for leaving out a single minor ingredient or for not displaying professional-level knife skills after one instructional session (uneven dice are referred to as "abominable"). On occasion, they are required to duplicate, without a recipe or any notes, a complicated dish prepared by a professionally trained chef.

The contestants have already publicly declared themselves to be terrors in the kitchen, so why would anyone be surprised when they overcook shrimp or burn potato cakes? Yet if anyone fails to present "a perfect dish," the chefs yell and shake their heads in disbelief and disgust. They don't educate — they just intimidate. Apparently, politics isn't the only realm in need of more civil discourse these days.

Why does a show like this succeed? Call it couch-potato schadenfreude. It's easy to picture viewers across the country, sitting in the comfort of their living rooms, pointing at the screen and laughing because some schmuck can't make an omelet. At a time when, according to Pollan, "Americans are spending considerably more time watching images of cooking on television than they are cooking themselves," is it wise to air a show that mocks people for not knowing how to prepare romesco sauce or for being unable to butcher a whole chicken?

If you were intimated by the idea of cooking, this kind of show certainly wouldn't encourage you to start. It's a shame, really, because The Food Network, among other broadcasters, is in the position to do some societal good by getting people excited about cooking and using fresh, healthy, even local or organic ingredients. Instead, as Pollan says, The Food Network has turned cooking "into yet another confection of spectacle and celebrity that keeps us pinned to the couch."

Look, I get it. We all work hard at our jobs and taking care of our homes and families. At the end of the day, we want to relax, laugh, and "escape"; and television can be a great vehicle for that. And food TV can be lots of fun (Good Eats, Nigella Lawson's various shows, and Top Chef are among my favorites). But like life, food isn't best experienced from the couch. So here's a new goal: starting now, I vow to try at least one recipe or technique from every show I watch, and I encourage you to do so as well. It's a surefire way for all of us to
get off our tushes and into the kitchen more often.

Laurel Gladden is a freelance writer in Santa Fe. Contact her at the.ethical.epicure@gmail.com.