Cooking is a game to Iron Chef Michael Symon

No doubt about it, "Cooked or Be Cooked" is entertaining. After all, the new Wii game that throws down cooking challenges also lets you try to "poison" the judges with undercooked bacon and eggs. (Judges include the spot-on avatar of Food Network honcho Susie Fogelson.)

But can it really teach you how to cook?

Food Network Iron Chef Michael Symon, who consulted in the game's creation, was in Los Angeles earlier this year to unveil an early version to the media and said the game can indeed teach someone how to cook. To prove it, he demo-ed a chicken-and-broccoli stir fry by following the game. (At times, he actually fell behind, but in his defense he also was chitchatting with a crowd of onlookers and answering their cooking questions at the same time.) The game includes cooking tips and recipes, although it has been dinged in some corners for not including enough recipes.

Symon said the game held something for everyone: Inexperienced cooks will gain inspiration, and experienced cooks will no doubt struggle to make sure that everything arrives at the judging table at the same time. 

"People come up to me all the time and say, 'Oh, I love to watch Food Network,' and I ask them what they cook, and they say, 'I don't really cook.' They're afraid, they're intimidated, they know all about food from eating out and watching TV, but they don't know where to start in their own kitchen. This gives them a place to start."

Symon said he would like to see parents and kids playing the game together. First, because chances are that the kids will beat their less-tech-savvy parents, and that's always a fun thing. And also because "it's one step toward getting families back at the kitchen table together. That's something that we are losing in their country, and it would be great to get that back. Eating together as a family is very important, everyone knows that, now we have to do it."

If a family is having fun pretending to cook imaginary food, imagine how much fun they could have heading into the kitchen and cooking food they actually could eat, he said.

-- Rene Lynch  

Photo: Food Network

Comments

[Bakequery]

This reminds me of something we learned from hosting a South Korean Exchange Student a few years ago. Women who are from the cities in S. Korea who get married first takes classes on how to be a wife. They are taught how to cook, clean, host, etc.

The parents are all out working sometimes 7 days a week so they have no way of teaching their children how to do anything other than make instant Ramen Noodles. By the time the kids are in high school they are usually taking after-school classes at Academies, until midnight! (That's why the parents are all out working their behinds off - to pay for those classes) Schools are extremely competitive. Suicide is high.

We'll soon be sending our offspring to pre-marital classes, too, only for different reasons. Here in the USA, instead of taking classes at academies, our kids are sitting in front of video games, texting each other, scanning Facebook, or involved in sports.

Last week my husband and I drove through Valley Forge Park with my brother and his 14 and 6 year old boys. Sasha was texting on his phone. Sam was playing Game Boy. They never even GLANCED at the park, even when Al exclaimed, "Look, reconstructions of the huts the soldiers lived in" or my husband said, "There's a sculpture of Mad Anthony Wayne." The only thing that caused even the slightest glance was when I was telling the boys that the position of the horse's feet indicated if the rider was injured or killed in battle.

I sure don't know what the solution is. Our kids were both home schooled. We never bought video games. Time on the computer or watching TV was extremely regulated, and yet, our 25 year old son and soon-to-be 27 year old daughter sit at the computer or at their phones, wasting incredible amounts of time. Heck, I'm doing it right now!

What kind of society have we become when we text a loved one to ask a question instead of picking up the phone or our children have to learn how to cook via Wii? Our offspring are looking to the Food Network to make dinner instead of calling their mothers to learn how prepare a dish from their childhood. I'm thinking that's robably because the only time in their childhood that mom actually cooked anything from scratch was on holidays and weekends and they weren't required to help, they were too busy texting.

The world's gone crazy!