‘Amy Schumer Learns to Cook’: Fans Love Seeing ‘Real People’ Make Food

Amy Schumer is known for a lot of things. Her work as a stand-up comedian helped to launch her into the national spotlight.

At the same time, her roles in films such as Judd Apatow’s Trainwreck got her a promising career in Hollywood. However, her most recent venture has her taking her talents to the Food Network as she cooks for a national audience.

However, the only problem is that she doesn’t know how to cook to save her life. Fans are delighted by the results. 

Celebrity Food Network chefs

Food Network’s cooking programs have taken a backseat to their competition shows as of lately. While Pioneer Woman and Barefoot Contessa keep the cooking show alive on the network, many of the most talented chefs on the network cook during competitions more than any cook-at-home show. One group of people, however, remains in the kitchen. 

For years, Food Network has experimented with celebrity chefs of a different sort. These are not people who rose the restaurant ranks to become successful in the industry before landing on Food Network. Instead, they are celebrities who made their names in entirely different fields before landing on Food Networks as a second-wind. 

The results have been mixed. Valerie Bertinelli and Trisha Yearwood made the most successful transition to the network, as both are years into a relationship that has helped both sides. Others, such as Patricia Heaton, have not had the same amount of luck.

Celebrities and food are always intertwined with one another in a social media age. Many of these chefs started food careers before they started on the Food Network. 

Amy Schumer’s newest show is different. Instead of showing off her cooking skills that she’s secretly perfected over many years, the show’s sell is that she doesn’t cook at all. Luckily, she doesn’t have to go far to learn. 

What is ‘Amy Schumer Learns to Cook’?

In May of 2020, Food Network was at a stand-still with the rest of the world. While networks of every genre tried to cope with the COVID-19 outbreak by providing makeshift programming, Food Network had to dig. The network has increasingly relied on cooking competitions in recent years. Still, with those strictly off-limits, they had to get creative. 

With millions of Americans stuck at home, thanks to the virus, the network announced Amy Schumer Learns to Cook. The show, which was shot in quarantine from Schumer’s residence, follows the comedian as she learns to cook under the guidance of her husband, Chef Chris Fischer. It was a fun way for the network to go back to its roots while offering new content for a world increasingly devoid of it. 

It was a novel idea, as many shows are geared toward those with some cooking experience. This idea, combined with a comedian’s natural presence and charisma, delighted audiences who watched Schumer in all her infamous glory. 

How did people react to Amy Schumer’s cooking show? 

In a world where hot takes dominate more than sports, people have a take on everything. For a celebrity-led cooking show to take off, a certain section of people would have to turn off their judgment to enjoy the show. However, on Food Network’s Reddit channel, the reaction to the show may have been better than expected. 

When fans on Reddit voiced their support for the show, they expected to be inundated with contrarian opinions. That was not the case, however. Fans appeared to enjoy Schumer’s willingness to put mistakes out there while also learning to cook from an actual chef.

In a COVID-19 world where people are stuck at home, this sort of relatable content is precisely what some people needed. 

This sentiment must have resonated past the pages of Reddit, too. The show was a hit, and a second season is currently in the works. Food Network might go back to competitions after the pandemic is over. Still, in the meantime, Schumer and her husband show that audiences are ready to watch cooking without judges and competition attached to it.

Whether it lasts beyond quarantine remains to be seen, but perhaps shows like this will make Food Network bring back the types of shows that initially put it on the map.