The Best -- and Worst -- of Rachael and Emeril

I have not experienced water-boarding, but I can now relate to the sensation of drowning. The poet Rimbaud may have captured my state of mind after this marathon of relentlessly peppy cooking instruction. His phrase: "total sensory chaos."

Part of the Food Network technique, which our interrogators at Gitmo might consider, is to bombard the viewer with surreal imagery that challenges mental equilibrium. Ina Garten, the Barefoot (and pudgy) Contessa, prepares beach food for summer visitors to the East End of Long Island — while snow falls outside my window. Paula Deen, having apparently finished with her downmarket distortion of Southern food, moves on to Southeast Asia, gabbily splashing fermented fish sauce and showing off fresh Kaffir lime leaves. Giada De Laurentiis, smiling like a toothpaste ad, looks svelte and trim while reporting from behind the scenes at a Waldorf-Astoria charity dinner, which must have taken place some time ago — Food Network regulars by now know about Giada's unintentional pregnancy, only four months from term when I saw the segment.

Then there's the equally disorienting sense of déjà vu. The recipes tossed out on these shows too often feel like rehashes of "creative" recipes from a 1950s food magazine: crabmeat with oatmeal to provide crunch, prepared spice mixes.

The network's arc is decidedly downmarket, with hosts like the toothsome blonde Sandra Lee. (I can't imagine Julia Child breaking in to TV on this network — not cute, not smooth.) Lee's program features "semihomemade cooking" — like corned-beef hash whose basic ingredient is a deli sandwich. Meanwhile, the accomplished (but commercial) cook Emeril Lagasse lost a show at the end of 2007. And Iron Chef Mario Batali, who got canned as Molto Mario, took his authentically creative act — and his beloved pig fat — elsewhere. As he recently put it, the Food Network has gone after the Wal-Mart customer and can't use someone who employs polysyllabic words.

Why do I care?

Because it's depressing to see that authentic presentations of great food and skilled cooking can't seem to garner the audience ratings that a profit-making network requires. It makes me sad to see Ina Garten's feeble knife skills exhibited to millions, while dozens of far more talented people who know how to chop and slice brilliantly don't make it on the air.

But a few first-rate cooks have survived in this ruthlessly mediocre medium — like Bobby Flay. Famous for his grilling and his menu of dishes from the American Southwest, Flay fills blue corn pancakes with shredded duck and shiitake mushrooms, a smart, delicious cadenza built on traditional regional cooking. He puts on a fun show, too, in his "throwdown" with two women who run a crepe restaurant in Austin, Tex. He can't master the women's technique of spreading a perfect circle of thin crepe batter on a griddle, so he falls back on the classic French method of twirling a skillet to let gravity do the spreading. It makes for a great lesson in technique.

Alton Brown plays the gastro-dweeb host of "Good Eats," the network's amiable gesture toward food science and history. One show, after revealing the original plant source of marshmallows (They come from a plant? Who knew?), proceeded to offer recipes I'm glad to know about while sidestepping vulgarities like that sticky white spread called Fluff — and its peanut-butter-laden cousin, the Fluffernutter.

The best thing about Mr. Brown is his ability to explain what he's doing without seeming schoolmasterly. His flashier confreres glide over obvious opportunities to educate their audience, substituting lip-smacking self-congratulation for basic information. Emeril devotes a whole segment to terrines without saying what they are or bothering to tell viewers that the vegetable terrine he is concocting would have been a revolutionary dish in France as recently as 1970. And his casual substitution of plastic wrap for thin slices of fatback as a terrine-mold liner goes unmentioned, when a quick flashback to the original farmhouse world that brought us terrines using fatback would have greatly enhanced the show.

Rachael Ray understands this. She may owe her huge popularity to a bouncy appeal, breezily articulate delivery and grace at the stove — but I'd like to think that at least part of what has made her America's bestselling cookbook author is a serious commitment to promoting real food and real ingredients. Where other Food Networkers may throw dried herbs on their concoctions, Ms. Ray flashes a bouquet of fresh leaves. She lets viewers know about the origin of her puttanesca sauce in Italian brothels. While Ina Garten can't be bothered to explain why she can leave muffins all mixed, molded and ready to go overnight (because double-acting baking powder doesn't start really aerating the dough until it's heated in the oven), Rachael is a fast-talking fount of knowledge. She can slice, too, and I even began to like the way she calls extra-virgin olive oil "E.V.O.O."

Another good thing about the Food Network: Tacky as most of the food is, it's better than what you see on the constant commercial interruptions. My fave: Banquet Crock-Pot Classics. "It does the cooking, so you don't have to."