Here's A Typewritten List Of The Original Food Network Show Concepts

Twenty-one years ago, when Food Network was just an idea sketched out in a typewritten business plan moldering at a Rhode Island cable company, the writers of the plan threw in a rather hilarious set of ideas for potential shows on the network. It's interesting to see how some of these did eventually land on the air in some form or the other, and others, justifiably, ended up on the scrap heap of food television history. Two of the lamest:

#22: "Great Meals from History: An Alistair Cooke hosted discussion of the gastrointestinal tendencies of the world's leading historic figures." (Note to wannabe food TV producers: never include the word "gastrointestinal" in pitches for food shows).

And #23: "Letting go: curing bad kitchen habits picked up from your mother. A 'how-to' program that teaches everything from how to slice an onion to how to cook a turkey, with particular emphasis on the bad habits we all learned in the kitchen."

For more backstory about what was originally pitched as The Food Channel, read my new book From Scratch: Inside the Food Network

Below is the complete list of shows as they appeared in the original business plan.

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