Look, but Don’t Eat

Words By: Gillian Mahoney Graphics By: Jamie Kim

Everyone loves a good cheese pull. The warm, melted dairy stretches as far as it can go before the delicate strands break away. It’s a common occurrence with pizza or mac and cheese. In Sohla El-Waylly’s case, it’s strata. I watch closely as the professional chef and YouTube sensation gently prises a piece of the frittata and bread pudding fusion away from the baking dish. The gooey cheese clinging to the strata grabs my attention from the beginning of the video, another episode of “Off-Script with Sohla.” Hers is a series that teaches the audience to improvise in the kitchen. There are no strict recipes here. You can customize the dish however you want to.

Sohla begins by drizzling cubes of garlic bread lightly with oil. She toasts them in the oven until golden brown. After preparing a custard mixture of eggs and milk, she tosses the bread cubes into a large bowl. Then, she seasons the custard with salt and spices and adds pockets of pepperoni and mozzarella. The final product is a landscape of browned, bubbling cheese, crisp and hot pepperoni, and fluffy, egg-soaked bread. It would make any viewer want to dig in.

I don’t often go straight to the kitchen after watching a cooking video. If you think about it, cooking and videos don’t seem to make sense together. Something in the back of my mind reminds me that some things are meant to be watched and not attempted. Maybe I don’t have the resources or the skills to even know where to begin with some recipes. So why do I keep watching if I’m not going to cook anything? But the passion and knowledge with which Sohla talks about food makes me want to get out my apron right away. After all, she makes it seem a lot easier than it is to cook at the professional level. She demonstrates each technique with ease. And after the strata video, I even went so far as to make a strata of my own: garlic-infused ciabatta, egg, spinach, and mushroom. It was delicious, by the way.

But there are always times when the techniques really are too complicated for my amateur skills. Or it’s just that I’m too lazy to attempt anything. And those things are part of my obsession with cooking videos. I love watching people cook things that I would never dream of attempting. These crazy concoctions are all over the internet: Sohla’s series on Food52, Babish Culinary Universe, Tasty, and of course, food TikTok. I watch in awe as people artfully make beautifully frosted cakes, buttery bread, wild flavors of ice cream, and gourmet snacks. Who would want to eat marinara ice cream? It doesn’t seem appealing, but when the sweet, tomato flavor is layered with creamy ricotta-flavored ice cream in a stunning ice cream lasagna, the visuals make all the difference.

But as weird or appealing as the food looks, what’s the point of watching someone cook if you don’t get to eat? How can people sit and watch as yet another TikTok chef gently breaks a chocolate chip cookie in half, letting the melted chocolate ooze out right in front of the camera? Looking at food through a screen cuts off the most important senses: taste and smell. It’s hard to watch the production of such delicious food when all you can do is stare longingly at it. The videos clash with the main purpose of food—eating it.

Somehow, people are still obsessed. Myself included. I could spend hours scrolling through food TikTok without even stepping foot in the kitchen. The factor that keeps everyone coming back can’t be solely based on a sudden inspiration to cook all these extravagant dishes from scratch. Maybe, as Julia Slisz from Spoon University suggests, it’s all about aesthetics. After all, these videos must be visually appealing to fuel the obsession. If we can’t eat the food, it has to look good. It’s always mesmerizing to watch talented people create something special.

The aesthetic aspect is just one of the many ways in which cooking videos serve a purpose. Even if I’m not always motivated to get cooking right away, they deepen my passion for food. They provide tips for home cooks, useful cooking techniques, and best of all, a community of people who love food and just want to get better at making it. Not everyone has to be a

professional chef or even want to try to make something edible. But these videos have something for all cooking levels. Sometimes we want to break the little glass barrier between observing and creating. And sometimes it’s fun to sit back and watch the professionals do all the work. That way, we can embrace all these videos have to offer. Cooking videos create a platform that makes cooking accessible to everyone and lets people enjoy all the aspects of the chefs’ passion. Whether it’s a cheese pull that goes on for miles or a cookie recipe that has you reaching for the chocolate chips, these videos bring everyone together.