Television is perhaps the most patient teacher of all, and by watching cooking shows on cable, it wasn't long before I was triumphantly pulling a fragrant and complicated-looking "braciole" (a skirt steak pounded flat, spread with a mixture of herbs and breadcrumbs, rolled into a tight "log" and tied up, then seared and subsequently braised in tomato sauce) from the oven. As I wrote the initial draft of this thesis, the more I began to think about the actual mechanics of food television. Do these shows increase the likelihood that people will cook for themselves? Do people watch to learn, or...