Natwerk Designs

America's Test Kitchen?

Any professional chef out there have an opinion about the PBS show America's Test Kitchen? It seems like any of their recipes can't really go wrong if they fine tweak it hundreds of times and have it tasted by dozens of people.

Public Comments

1. ATK is the homogenization of cooking. It is tasted, tweaked and tasted again until it suits all the palates. Cooking is about personalization not democratic recipes that reach a consensus. Fool proof? Yes.
2. I have found America's Test Kitchen (ATK) to be very reliable. They have a number of cookbooks on the market; try Amazon.com. Their books also contain product test findings and valuable tips. You should also check out their web site! I'm not a professional chef, but I use to be. I own most of their cookbooks, and I have never found a recipe in their books that didn't work. People have different tastes, as you know, but proper food preparation, although not an exacting science, is based on and subject to certain principles, and it's my opinion, that the people at the ATK have an excellent working familiarity of PROPER and what gives the best results.
3. You've heard of too many cooks, right? While I admire how they demonstrate good ways to do difficult dishes and how they demystify some processes, they do tend to a dish rather oblique. They are terrific when they test implements -- their test of storage bags was GREAT -- I look at their recipes with a little bit of the same reservation I have for the music of Lawrence Welk.