16 Classic Food Network Shows That Time Made Us Forget

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Remember back when you used to get sucked into hours on end of Food Network shows because it played all your favorites? The early days of Food Network was chock full of shows that became instant classics, after all. Yet many of them have been off television for so long that we've forgotten about them entirely.

While you can still find some episodes of these early Food Network shows online, others are just fond memories. Of course, many of the entries on this list were a breakout series for food celebrities — some of whom you probably still associate with the channel when thinking about Food Network.

Now, there's a good chance some readers still remember classic shows like "Everyday Italian" with Giada De Laurentiis. But do you remember Emeril Lagasse's earliest Food Network show, before "Emeril Live" (and before he was known for yelling "bam!"), or Rachael Ray's travel show? Take a trip with us down memory lane with these 16 classic Food Network shows that aired between 1993 and 2011 that you forgot you loved.

If you were watching TV when the Food Network first went on the air in 1993, you probably found yourself watching the long-forgotten show "How to Boil Water." Whether you really needed tips on how to boil water or not, this was the show that set the standard for Food Network as a place to find educational cooking shows since it was meant to be a sort of cooking school for viewers who needed the basics.

It was hosted by a range of chefs, who taught viewers how to make everything from gourmet sandwiches and kid-friendly meals to effortless dessert and pot roast. One of the first hosts was none other than Emeril Lagasse, whose growing popularity and prowess for entertainment propelled him to host his own shows, like the famous "Emeril Live" show. Some later hosts included comedian Sean Donnellan, Jack Hourigan, and Tyler Florence before it ended around 2003.

In the second year Food Network was on the air, 1994, viewers were treated to a show called "Taste With David Rosengarten." David Rosengarten has hosted more than 2,000 shows, but this is the one that won him a James Beard award for Best National TV Cooking Show. He had a charisma that drew in viewers, and some people online who remember watching it still cook some of the recipes he taught them on the show (which aired until 2001).

It wasn't difficult to accidentally get drawn into watching one of these episodes as you were flipping through television channels. Rosengarten could pull you in with something as simple as creating a BLT sandwich then keep you enthralled, pointing out standard problems with subpar bacon, lettuce, and tomato components and teaching you how to make the very best version. While those early dialogues weren't always perfectly-delivered, his style was personal and captivating because he knew how to draw in his television audience and make them feel like a part of the experience.

In Food Network's third year, 1995, it started up a colorful and feisty little show called "Too Hot Tamales." This was a show that appealed to those who were looking for entertainment as much as cooking tips for Latin food. The two ladies who hosted the show, Mary Sue Milliken and Susan Feniger, were silly, chatty, and lots of fun. It was a show that didn't take itself too seriously, but it was created to make people who were channel surfing stop and keep watching.

While the two ladies who ran the show until 1999 weren't Latinas themselves, they had travelled throughout Los Angeles and into Mexico to learn the cuisine of immigrants and natives, which they were ready to teach to their viewers. The foods they made were from all over Central America and South America, delivered with their own personal interpretations.

It wasn't necessarily beginner-friendly, but viewers stuck around for the interplay between the hosts. Plus, watchers learned about new dishes and ingredients like cilantro. It wasn't long before the duo had a cookbook out called "Cooking With Too Hot Tamales" (which isn't particularly easy to track down as of this writing), and both ladies won the Julia Child Award in later years, as well.

"Ready... Set... Cook!" was an early Food Network Shows starting in 1995 that took its inspiration from a popular British cooking called "Ready Steady Cook." It prided itself for being the first cooking game show in the U.S., but it certainly wouldn't be the last. It had a variety of hosts during its run through 2001, keeping contestants racing against the clock.

The British version pitted celebrity chefs against each other, giving them just a handful of ingredients to cook from in a set period of time. In the American version, ordinary people were given a small budget to buy ingredients for their partner, who was a chef. The competing chefs were sometimes restaurant chefs. However, they might also be celebrity chefs like Paula Deen or Jacques Pepin. There were two teams, the Tomatoes and Peppers, which would have about 20 minutes to cook something to compete. There were themes for each episode, whether that be mollusks, lemons, Middle Eastern, Spam, or even something obscure like ingredients from palm trees.

While you may still remember Bobby Flay's show "Throwdown! With Bobby Flay," he would rather you forget that his first Food Network show, "Grillin' and Chillin'," ever existed. It was a laid-back show featuring the citified Flay and countrified Jack McDavid, who both showcased their outdoor grilling skills. McDavid would demonstrate grilling on a charcoal grill, while Flay would use a propane grill.

The show debuted in 1996, when Flay's only child was just 10 days old, and they shot 42 episodes in that week in the network's back lot, which featured a latticework fence, pond, picnic table, and swing set. We can only imagine how brutal that schedule must have been for a new, sleep-deprived dad. The show was raw with no editing, so what they produced on the first run was exactly what you saw on your television screen. While it was an anxiety-inducing format, learning to do television that way influenced the way Flay would film his later shows.

"Two Fat Ladies" was a loaner show from the BBC that became a cult classic when it was syndicated on the Food Network in 1996. It featured two British ladies – Jennifer Paterson and Clarissa Dickson Wright — traveling by motorcycle and sidecar to showcase British home cooking. Their personalities were larger than life, they had lots of fun with each other, and the dishes they featured often had ridiculous names like beans meanz fitz or meatloaves known as hedgehogs.

Part of the draw was watching their travels, like watching them interact with a shepherd while waiting for sheep to cross the road. The very first episodes were Christmas specials, and they often travelled to cook for groups. For example, they fed a group of lumberjacks in the Atlantic Oakwoods of Western Scotland and fed some Portuguese potato pickers in Jersey. The recipes tended to be fairly rich, as well, and they seemed to add a stick of butter and some bacon to practically everything.

By the time the show ended in 1999, it had already inspired two Food-Network-branded cookbooks: "Cooking With the Two Fat Ladies" and "The Two Fat Ladies Ride Again." While the show had been off the network for years, the cooking world was devastated when Dickson Wright died in 2014.

Another BBC loaner from 1999, "The Naked Chef," featured 20-something Jamie Oliver cooking simplified food for his friends and family. Oliver disappointingly never cooked in the buff, but that title certainly piqued viewers' interests. The only stripping happening on the show was when Oliver would take apart fancy recipes that you might find at a restaurant and recreate them in a more simplified way that took them to their bare essentials and demystified cooking – thus the "naked" component of the show.

Part of the show's appeal was that it took places in settings like Oliver's kitchen flat and local restaurants, or he'd travel to cook for someone. Plus, his passion for food and desire to share it in an approachable way shone through every episode. It's one of those shows that worked because Oliver was young; his high-energy vibrancy of life spent with friends, along with an unpretentious cooking style, made him relatable. The show also inspired Oliver's first cookbook, which was named after the show.

"Cooking Live" was hosted by a personality not seen on Food Network anymore: Sara Moulton. Moulton had previously been the executive chef for "Gourmet Magazine," and used that experience and experience as an understudy of Julia Child to create her own cooking show. This classic Food Network show was ultimately on the air for seven years, from 1999 to 2005.

As you can probably guess from the title, Moulton's show was live. However, it also had an added bonus of allowing viewers to call in or email her to ask questions. So, if you were lucky, you got to hear yourself on live TV while watching the show. However, the amazing thing was that, no matter what someone asked Moulton, she was ready with an encyclopedic-level answer off the top of her head. She cooked elevated versions of simple dishes like burgers or might showcase food from a region like Tunisia, which helped expand the cooking horizons of viewers.

If you dream of sweets more than other foods, you likely were a big fan of the long-forgotten Food Network show "Sweet Dreams." James Beard-award-winning pastry chef Gale Gand cooked nothing on this show but desserts every day for eight years, between 2000 and 2008. Since the show was only 22-minutes long, which meant it was possible to film two to five in a single day and film 30 shows in just two weeks.

With so many of the network's shows revolving around savory dishes and being high-energy competition shows, viewers appreciated the change of pace that it offered. While it's been off the air for a long time, some of the show's recipes (like Boston cream pie) are still popular on the Food Network website. It's also still possible to watch certain episodes online in 2026 on some streaming services like Discovery+. Consequently, you can still learn how to make everything from rehruchen and Russian cherry teacakes to homemade ice cream and passionfruit mousse.

One classic Food Network show you might have forgotten about could easily reel you in and lull you into a full watch before you knew it: "Unwrapped." In this show, Marc Summers gave behind-the-scenes looks at the making foods you love, often providing sneak peeks into factories and test kitchens. The original show started in 2001 and officially ended in 2010, but there were some occasional specials that extended the series. Plus, there was a revival with Alfonso Ribeiro hosting "Unwrapped 2.0" between 2015 and 2017.

At first, the sneak peeks of the production process were for things like candies, snacks, and junk food. But it eventually extended to items like Chipotle burritos, so anything was fair game. The rhythm of the show and the cadence of Summers' voice turned it into a relaxing and binge-worthy comfort watch for many, and it was full of all sorts of fascinating information.

While Anthony Bourdain wasn't ultimately a fan of Food Network and some of its celebrities, his very first show, "A Cook's Tour," aired on the network between 2002 and 2003. It might not have started out as polished as some of Bourdain's later travel food shows. Yet it set a standard for future travel food shows, with his trademark storytelling narration format and willingness to try anything put in front of him — from snake wine and cobra hearts to toasted grasshoppers.

"A Cook's Tour" started in Japan and ultimately ended in Thailand. However, in between, he visited every continent except Antarctica, including several cities in the U.S. Since the show was shot in 2000 and 2001 ahead of its network release, it gave Bourdain the chance to write and sell a book called "A Cook's Tour: In Search of the Perfect Meal" about his world food tour ahead of the show. The book came out a year after the ever-popular "Kitchen Confidential" had already become a bestseller. So, many food readers were already familiar with Bourdain before he made his television debut.

Back in 2002, Rachael Ray had a fun little show that was always enjoyable called "$40 a Day." The premise was that she'd travel different places and try to eat well with just a budget of $40 a day. Of course, in 2002, that was a little easier to do, but one of our writers was able to do it in New York City in 2025 and still eat well. Granted, Ray's version didn't include the cost of decent tips, which left a bad taste in some viewers' mouths for the show.

Rachael Ray had already been putting out episodes of her long-running "30 Minute Meals" for a year when she got to do this little travel show. The fun part was that she wasn't doing small town diners on this budget; she was generally traveling to bigger cities in the U.S. like Los Angeles and New York City. However, the show took her out of the country, too, to places like Mexico, Canada, and Italy.

Ray wasn't just eating on these shows, either. You got to see a bit in the kitchen behind the scenes, and she got to do a little shopping and see a few sites and do fun things, too. So, it made you want to visit all these locations.

"Sara's Secrets" is yet another classic show put out by the fabulous Sara Moulton that you likely forgot existed. This 2001 show wasn't live (like her other show on this list), but she was ready to offer home cooks plenty of tips and secrets to cooking great food. For this show, she also had a lot of special guests come to share their cooking secrets with the television audience, with the various cookbook authors, chefs, and other food specialists offering new viewpoints and ideas to viewers.

One of the more interesting things about this series was that the episodes were thematic. Perhaps you'd get a peek into how a chef preps days ahead of a big meal or dinner party, ideas for an elevated picnic menu, or even ideas for special menus like for a bridal buffet. You never knew what you were going to get and when it might come in handy. While popular when it was on the air until 2006, it gained new life in 2010, when it was syndicated on The Cooking Channel.

Even if you're a food history nerd, you probably forgot that the Food Network once had a show called "The Secret Of," in which host Jim O'Connor or George Duran explored the history of various foods. It only ran from 2002 to 2008, but it's a classic of educational programming from the network.

Each episode's name expands on the series name to fill in the blank, giving you episode titles like "The Secret Life of BBQ" (the very first episode) or "The Secret Life of Chocolate." The episodes would go back to the roots of the food, like the role of chocolate in ancient Aztec and Mayan cuisine. Then, it would bring it into the present, like exploring modern day chocolatiers. The first season hit the biggies, like pasta, pies, cookies, ice cream, and hamburgers, with later seasons reaching out into broader categories like cooking schools, catering, and family restaurants.

"Semi-Homemade Cooking With Sandra Lee" is a forgotten Food Network classic that bred a little controversy. The idea behind the show was to cook using 70% pre-packaged ingredients and 30% fresh ingredients to save time in the kitchen. While this is honestly how many people cook and was especially helpful for beginners, there were plenty who attacked the recipes for being overly processed. However, it was popular enough to be on the air from 2003 to 2011.

Something else that you probably forgot about Lee's show was that she always showed off her homemade tablescapes, which were crafty and sometimes unhinged decorations to go with her semi-homemade meals. For example, she'd make a turkey out of leaves for Thanksgiving or make a whole spread of gaudily decorated pumpkins and candy-decorated mini-trees for Halloween.

One Food Network show you're going to wonder how you forgot is "Ace of Cakes." The high-octane cake-baking show hosted by rock musician Duff Goldman brought a bit of rock and roll to his cake-making routine. Of course, it was the outrageous cakes Duff and his team were making at Charm City Cakes in Baltimore that caught the attention of Food Network.

These definitely weren't your grandma's cakes. Some would take over a full day to make, with Duff and his creative team using tools like blowtorches and drill saws to make cakes that smoked or even came to life. You never knew what you'd see next on this show as the team dreamed up new ideas and customers asked for unique cakes. The first season in 2006 had them making bumper car cakes and a giant sandcastle cake. But then as the seasons moved onward, the cakes seemed to get more intricate, like working roller coaster cakes and Bavarian castle replica cakes, until the series ended in 2011.