The six-part cooking show “Böhmi sizzles” with Jan Böhmermann ends on Saturday, with Igor Levit as a guest. The episode raises the question again: What is cooking shows for?
Why are there cooking programs on German television? Because they are popular. But why? Jan Böhmermann answers the question why he is now doing a cooking show, ironically exposing himself in the opening credits to his six-part ZDF series “Böhmi sizzles”: Everyone has a cooking show, so why not me too? But differences to role models are all too small.
Influences from the prime minister of German cooking programs – the recently deceased Alfred Biolek with “Alfredissimo” – but also from “Lanz kocht” can be clearly seen. A noticeable amount of meat is used for cooking (in 2021 …). And of course also talked. About experiences in the kitchen, about personal careers, sometimes even about social politics.
Last episode of “Böhmi sizzles” with Jan Böhmermann: Igor Levit is the guest
In the last of the six episodes – which can be seen as a bridge to the new season of ZDF Magazin Royale (it will continue on September 3rd), pianist Igor Levit stands next to the host at the stove. Böhmermann also had Levit as a guest at ZDF Magazin Royale, most recently in April together with the singer Danger Dan, whose song “This is all covered by artistic freedom” Levit accompanied on the piano.
To broadcast
Böhmi brutzelt auf ZDF Neo, Saturday (28.08.) At 19.45
Levit cooks grouper with wild broccoli because he lacks his “place of longing for Naples”, Böhmermann cooks a 5-component ramen because, according to his own statement in his podcast “Fest & Fluschig”, he trained to be a ramen expert – especially in the year of the pandemic – a lover of the Japanese He’s been noodle soup for a long time. So the two talk at the stove. A bit about Levit’s biography, a bit about the “ugly” fish redfish (Böhmermann’s opinion) a bit about whether Levit has insured his fingers when he handles sharp kitchen knives as a pianist.
Jan Böhmermann in “Böhmi sizzles”: Mixture of cooking show and talk show
Unfortunately, the answer to the initial question is not discernible: Why this cooking show? It does not encourage you to cook again (although you can download all the recipes from the website). You could try to cook with, because you don’t have to concentrate very much in order to follow the topics that have been touched on, but everything goes too fast for that, as in every cooking show, of course, the sentence “I’ve already prepared something” is used here. As a talk show, however, the conversations go far too little in depth.
And yet: Somehow you also like to watch, it doesn’t hurt, it’s not too complex, something happens. Perhaps this is also the secret of the sizzling success. Between tons of trash TV, entertainment shows and reactionary talk rounds (Greetings from Plasberg), this format is also a kind of place of longing on German television. You can see celebrities chatting and, in the best case scenario, get news from their private lives – and at the end a bit of an appetite. Perhaps that is the answer to the question of why this strange TV concept is so successful. (David Segler)
