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Man vs Food: The Greatest Program On Television
America has been struggling in the likeability stakes of late, but there's one man who is here to turn that around...by eating really big sandwiches.
A light snack.
Over the last 15 years, the America ‘brand’ has been severely tarnished – sometimes as a result of the actions of its politicians and business leaders, but also by oh-so-superior Europeans who hate the fact that large parts of their own populations have the temerity to enjoy such gauche things as blockbuster movies and hamburgers. Residents of the old world who find it hard to reconcile their predictable dislike of the world’s biggest democracy with their love of minced beef discs in sesame seed buns neatly swerve this conundrum by spending 15 quid on burger and chips at middle-class fast food joints like Byron and GBK.
God knows then what they make of Man v. Food, the Travel Channel’s homage to everything the uptight European hates about American cuisine. In it, the host – a jovial Brooklynite called Adam Richman – ventures to far-flung places around the country in search that town’s most famous dish or eating challenge. Every week it’s the same shtick.
“Hi, I’m Adam Richman. This week we’re at Bobby’s in Minneapolis-St Paul, home of the quadruple-chilli-Bobby-burger, and I’m on a mission to see if I can get my fill of the biggest meal in the twin cities.”
Richman, who eats like a bulimic in a toilet showroom, then a) meets the owner b) goes into the kitchen and gazes lovingly at the ribs or burgers/tastes the spice mix and c) meets the locals who are chowing down on slabs of dead animal which look like they’ve been scooped off the field at Agincourt. Then, and this is the show’s money shot, he takes the restaurant’s eating challenge – normally a vast sandwich crammed with incalculable amounts of meat, cheese, chilli… and more meat. With fries. Surrounded by cheering diners, he proceeds to eat it, quickly at first, then as the sheer enormity of the task hits him, with dogged resignation. This man never gives up. Think of Ali versus Foreman, the champ soaking up the punishment without a moan, and you’re somewhere in the right ball park. It is wonderful television.
Occasionally – very occasionally – Richman is defeated, usually by something containing gallons of coagulating cheese. And it hurts. But there are no excuses, just an admission he wasn’t up to the task. We’re with him when he fails, we know he’s given it all and we love him more for it.
More…
America is a country built on hope and possibility – and Man v. Food is dripping with both. Not only do we learn about the food that feeds the country – and believe me, those pit masters at barbecue restaurants are every bit as skilled and passionate as the most do-gooding, organic cook over here – but we witness that joyful American spirit in action. What other country could invent something so delicious and utterly bonkers as ‘chicken-fried bacon?
At a time when so many of us love nothing more than judging the eating habits of (white, working class) people who love mini-kievs and Findus crispy pancakes (both of which I utterly adore), it’s refreshing to find a programme that celebrates food for the joyful experience it should be. There is no guilt here, just dedication by restaurant owners and chefs to create food that tantalises every pleasure-sensitive bud on their diners’ tongues.
If this programme was made here, the host would ironically eat the grub, while the director cut in shots of suitably ugly/old/pale people eating FOOD WHICH IS BAD FOR THEM AND WE PRETEND NOT TO LIKE, so the viewers can indulge in that favourite of British pastimes: laughing at the lower orders.
Richman is the polar opposite to that. A New Yorker with “years of experience in the restaurant trade”, he undoubtedly knows his 30-day aged ribeye from his artisanal-made loaf made by lesbian dwarves in Williamsburg. But on his odyssey, he never judges the food of Main Street America and more importantly, the people who enjoy eating it.
He loves it all, and I love Man v. Food.
Anthony is Editor of Umbrella Magazine, check it out here
When he’s not slaving over a hot page layout, he blogs here, Bloke and a Coke
Alternatively you can follow him on Twitter here, or Umbrella here…
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COMMENTS
he is a utter, utter fucksack tho
RAG - He's a saint compared to the guy who does Three Sheets, Zane someone...
Refreshing? Refreshing to do what? Watch a dude gorge himself on rubbish in a world where half the population have nothing? Yeah sounds great! And what's so good about watching someone eating a bunch of crap? The 'challenges' are a bunch of shit too. Obviously the bigger someone makes something, the higher the likely hood that a person wont be able to eat it. It's stupid. It's shameful. It's unnecessary. Assclowns
Sorry if I come across as a sneering European but he seems overly proud of his ability to eat, the show has about 5-10 min of intresting watching the rest is establishing shots or re-capping and finally he comes across as being extremly irritating.
I would love to see Snobs vs Slobs where they both try not to enjoy a feast of the others devising. Preferably with a really sneery voice over. At the end a really lairy chef gets to see if he's as hard as a mixed martial artist and the loser of the fight has to eat a meal of the winners chosing
Choosing...
What a fucking brilliant write up!! hillarious. i also love the show. Richman is a hero. Imagine being so so so full, like the fullness you used to get at Uni when in a semi drunk/stoned state you would order entirely too much pizza with your flatmates and eat it far too quickly resulting in a burnt mouth and bulging gut that resembles that scene in Alien. Now imagine having to eat another pizza on top of that. Thats what this champ contends with. None of those challenges he does are easy. 96 oysters or whatever?!?!The spicy stuff he does is mind over matter (thats not to say easy) but there is no way you can overcome being full. Those fucking burritos he eats that are the size of a 2 year old!?!? what the fuck is that?!? how the hell??? Any nay sayers or people who are irritated are the exact card board cut out british charactures you have referenced in the above. Such a shame. I wait for someone to upload a "meanwhile in Africa.." comment zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz Really enjoyed this story Anthony. cheers
I'm alway's left dissapointed at the end of MVF that the fat sweaty lump has not had a fatal heart attack.The cunt.
I love this show. And Adam Richman is an idol.
he knows loads about food but never judges poor people's food? well how fucking nice of him. throw the twat a bone.
artisanal loaf made by lesbian dwarves in Williamsburg. Strangley, some people are impressed by shit like that.
This is a better piece about this By Charlie Brooker Eating huge quantities of food is an unobtainable fantasy for some and an everyday luxury for others. To Adam Richman, voracious host of Man V Food (Mon, 9pm, Good Food), it's a career choice. Man V Food is obscene on many levels, but daft on several more. The format couldn't be much simpler: every week, Richman travels to a city (Memphis this time) and samples its most notorious "pig out joints": the sort of quintessentially American restaurants where everything is charbroiled or smoked or sizzled to death in a deep fat fryer vat the size of a swimming pool; places where each mammoth portion comes with a side order of type two diabetes. Establishments of this kind often tend to have a "challenge" item on the menu – a dish so offensively huge, anyone who successfully manages to eat it has their portrait hung on the wall. The end of each episode sees Richman taking on one of these challenges, hence the title. That's all there is to it. Essentially this is Top Gear for food: a jokey, blokey exercise in excessive indulgence. It's all sensation, sensation, sensation. Just as Clarkson emits orgasmic whimpers when his driver's seat judders on acceleration, so Richman groans like a man having his perineum tongued by three cheerleaders as he ingests each warm mouthful of stodge. If food is the new porn, this is an all-out orgy between wobbling gutsos and farmyard animals – a snuff orgy, no less, since the latter end up sawn in half and smothered in BBQ sauce. Plenty of cattle get eaten; at times Richman may as well lie down, open his gob and let a herd stampede directly into his stomach. Entire carcasses are greedily consumed by overweight folk with juice dribbling down their chins, tearing flesh from charred bones with their glistening teeth. It's like sitting in Sawney Bean's cave. Meat and skeletons, meat and skeletons. A sequence in which Richman peers inside an oven at Memphis's premier rib joint to witness a landscape of scorched and smouldering ribcages almost resembles the aftermath of the Dresden firebombing. This is definitely not a programme for vegetarians. Things reach an insane peak (or more accurately, trough), as Richman takes on the eating challenge. This week he faces the 7 ½ pound "Sasquatch Burger" at the Big Foot Lodge. 1,300 people have attempted to eat one; only four have succeeded. This high failure rate is hardly surprising when you see the bloody thing: it's the size of a sofa cushion. The bun alone accounts for two pounds. The burger itself is an ominous cake of mashed cow as thick as your thigh. When he first tucks in, Richman is chirpy and cocky, shovelling handfuls of meat down his neck with the gluttonous abandon of a self-aware Homer Simpson. Several minutes later, as it becomes clear he still has an immense mountain of food to get through, he appears sickened and woozy – presumably because his blood sugar levels have hit a dangerously narcotic high as his stomach desperately tries to break down the busload of beef that's just appeared inside it. This is the point at which the show stops being fun. It's like watching a man dealing with an instant, unexpected pregnancy. But what I'd really like to see is what happens the next morning, when the show presumably turns into Man V Poo, as Richman empties the dauntingly substantial, hopelessly compacted contents of his engorged colon, clenching the bathroom doorhandle between his teeth as he attempts to give birth to a leg-sized hunk of fecal sod without killing himself. Cue footage of him sweating, shaking and sobbing like a man impaled on a clay tree, before eventually squeezing out a log with the dimensions and weight of a dead gazelle in a greased sleeping bag. As he mops his brow (and backside), he smiles weakly with exhausted triumph, whispers farewell, and the credits roll. And we've all learned something about the price of excess.
Nice article. crispy pancakes. Good call.
Unleash
In a world overflowing with media this is just another article trying to catch our attention by being deliberately contencious. This show is complete trash and the writer doesn't believe otherwise.
Im English and me and my boyfriend love man vs food! In fact I'm watching it right now! Everyone is entitled to their own opinion so don't spread more hate in the world by penalising one group of people I bet there are Americas that don't like watching it! To be honest if I had to choose one reason why I want to visit America it would be to experience the food.
The greatest show on television? Get fucked. Mildly entertaining at best if there isn't anything else on, but I guess that doesn't make for an exciting enough title.
Americans are fat cunts with no taste.
I like watching this while waiting for me tea to cook - gives me a good appetite. However, big congrats to the articlist on getting 10 paragraphs about the programme - it's a likeable bloke eating shitloads of food.
it's a likeable bloke eating shitloads of food. you fucking what? - he's a fat obnoxious twat! heart attack waiting to happen...CUNT!
It is our modern day equivalent of On The Road, a brilliant and unrepentently positive homage to America and all the possibilities and culture which you'd not else experience
America is a country built on murder. And this show is appalling, nothing to do with the food, or yer man who seems affable enough, you're watching negligent manslaughter.
Greatest show on TV? Sure, better acting than the Sopranos, more suspense than the shield, more real than the wire? Shithouse articles like this are a waste of online space, and seeing the size of the internet is supposed to be bound only by the amount of servers we attach to it, thats a big fucking call
I'm with Jeffrey Jefferson. But be that as it may Mr Teasdale, I believe that your basic premises are wrong. A) America is widely hated largely because of it's exploitative foreign policies and because a country with a minority of the world's population consumes the majority of the world's resources; and celebrates the fact. B) America is a country built on greed and genocide.
love this show but the challenges at the end are shite! Diners, Dive Ins, and Dives I find is more about the method and the food rather than just the food itself. Fan of both tho.
