The other day on the Food Network, Gourmet magazine restaurant critic David Rosengarten opened his how-to-be-an-epicure show "Taste" by leaning into the camera and yelling sarcastically, "HEL-LO? Can somebody tell me why roast beef and roast rack of lamb get all the gastronomic respect but when it comes to the PORCINE EQUIVALENT, no one seems to be IN-TER-ES-TED?"

After waxing nostalgic over the Sunday pork rib roasts of his childhood, Rosengarten countered some of the "bad PR" racked up by the other white meat ("Pork is fatty and baaaad for you," he mimicked, wagging his finger at the camera), decried the "pork scientists" who've bred leaner and less tasty porkers and promised to help us "cook a pork rib roast that will make you cry tears of nostalgia like me, or tears of discovery." Cutting into the juicy finished roast, Rosengarten was a veritable yum-yum symphony: "I really don't know why the meat-eating world doesn't get more excited about this. Ha! I mean, I mean -- could this be any better?" He took a bite and closed his eyes. "This is heaven!"

In a society that has forgotten how to take pleasure in food, Rosengarten jump-starts the collective taste memory. He may be a tad overzealous but, boy oh boy, did he make my mouth water for that pork.

Sense memory is a theme that runs through the Food Network like the blue-green veins in Gorgonzola. Mario Batali, the ponytailed, serene host of the Italian cooking show "Molto Mario," recently topped a prosciutto and fig dish with a sprinkling of fennel seeds, explaining, "I do this as a little tip of my hat to my grandfather Armando, whose favorite thing in the world was fennel." This is the Food Network at its best, underscoring the relationship between food and family, ritual and love.

In a mobile society where family members are displaced and far-flung, the Food Network is like a surrogate grandma's kitchen -- except it's free from the tensions and food issues that screw up real families. The Food Network family is very forgiving. I am a so-so cook with limited time and knowledge, but I know that the unflappable Sara Moulton of the daily interactive show "Cooking Live" will gently guide me through baby steps stuff, like how to tackle an artichoke, and she won't get all Martha Stewart superior on me. The Food Network, unlike the majority of the PBS cooking shows that tend to treat dinner as a museum piece, demystifies cooking, breaks it down to the basics of science and aesthetics -- what goes with what.

Sure, the Food Network has its share of showboaters, like its biggest star, Emeril Lagasse; an excitable Louisiana chef with a Boston accent, Lagasse hosts two daily shows, on which he touts his line of seasoning "essences" and tirelessly works his catch phrase -- "BAM!" shouted while lobbing around handfuls of said essences -- like a culinary Hank Kingsley. But the Food Network's great web site gives you free access to its recipe library. And if you watch the network for even a little while, you're going to learn something.

The Food Network's target viewers are (mostly women) between the ages of 25 and 54, which makes them part of the generation that rebelled against domesticity, or had mothers who rebelled. The Food Network gives us a second chance to learn to cook on our own terms. And best of all, the Food Network places the sort of healthy focus on food that women are unaccustomed to seeing in this body-image-obsessed culture. Food is not a bad thing here; liking food is not a moral weakness. The Food Network is nourishing, for body and mind.

But there's a vast difference between the Food Network's robust, bountiful programming and the way many Americans really eat, and it's illustrated by the commercials you see on the network every day. The chefs are cooking fabulous dishes, but the ads are touting foods for the guilty eater -- Lean Cuisine, Equal sugar substitute, Dannon low-fat yogurt snacks -- or the unadventurous, time-pressed one: Velveeta, French's mild Dijon mustard, Campbell's Soups, those canned fried onions you put on top of that awful green bean casserole.

The commercials depict a food reality that's narrow, fearful and flavorless. Some Food Network junkies have used the food porn metaphor to describe the network's allure -- you know, forbidden fruit (and cake) in a puritanical society. But I think the Food Network is more like a food fairyland: It's a pretty, pleasant place to escape, to feed your head with dreams of how magical life would be if you could actually make those recipes come out like they do on TV -- and if you could actually eat them without guilt. After a Food Network reverie, I always feel woozy and vaguely disappointed. It's as if the clock has struck midnight, and my pumpkin cheesecake has turned back into a pumpkin.
March 26, 1997

"Molto Mario" (1 and 4 p.m. weekdays)
"Taste" (3 and 9:30 p.m. Monday-Thursday and Saturday)
"Essence of Emeril" (12:30 and 3:30 p.m. weekdays)
"Emeril Live" (10 p.m. weeknights)
"Cooking Live!" (7 p.m. weeknights)
All times are EST. Check local listings.