‘Iron Chef’ Stars Weigh In on TikTok: ‘Cabbage Salad Became the Thing. How the F Does That Happen?!’

variety.com:

Elizabeth Wagmeister Senior CorrespondentThere’s no doubt about it: social media has revolutionized the food business. Scrolling through endless food porn on Instagram tipped off a craze that has now fully blown up with TikTok, which has turned everyone into a 15-second chef.That also might be the problem.

Today, everyone is an expert in everything, without the credentials.On one hand, the intense love around food on social media has heightened interest in the culinary world, but at the same time, classically-trained chefs worry that the influx of short-form content is “trivializing” the art of cooking.

Just ask Alton Brown and Kristen Kish, co-hosts of the new “Iron Chef” on Netflix — but that’s not to say they don’t appreciate what social media has done for their business. “We became rock stars,” Kish says. “Chefs became rock stars.”Social media has essentially done for Gen Z what the food genre of television did for Millennials when cooking shows exploded in the late 90’s and early 2000’s.

After all, Brown is one of the godfathers of cooking TV, having spent 20 years at Food Network, and Kish burst onto the scene after winning “Top Chef.” Generations of viewers learned to cook from watching celebrity chefs like them, and today, new generations are learning from TikTok — except the teachers aren’t actually chefs.Kish says that shows like “Top Chef” and “Iron Chef” began to “reshape what food and food competition look like.” She adds, “Up-and-comers who nobody knew were were given a platform to showcase what they love, and it was always about the food.