Context – Stephen Cusato – YouTube – Not Another Cooking Show

Our previous article saw us discuss food provenance, which essentially is the base-level context behind the who, what, when, why, where, and how of our food. In this piece, we will be looking at ‘context’ from a different angle.

Mark Wiens (of whom we’re massive fans) is globally famous for eating food and describing the taste of what he is eating/has just eaten. His trademark expression when he eats something he particularly likes is a YouTube phenomenon. Ask anyone who watches food content on YouTube what Mark Wiens is famous for, and they will no doubt tell you that it’s for eating food, describing its taste, and his facial expressions of ‘food delight’ while doing so. The same is true for William ‘Sonny’ Sonbuchner (of whom we’re also massive fans) from the Best Ever Food Review Show. Sonny is also globally famous for eating and describing the food’s taste, although his trademark isn’t facial expressions, but rather a red bandana. However, both these legends of the food eating and taste describing game are actually eating and describing the taste far less than we may all think.

We’re obsessed with YouTube metrics here at Contentico, and we thus spend an inordinate amount of time coming up with new ones to measure the parts of YouTube that aren’t currently measured. A recent metric we’ve been working on is the % of each video that food-focused YouTubers spend eating and describing the taste of what they are eating/have just eaten. We’ve dubbed our new metric the EDIT%, the EBITDA of food content for all the foodie accountants among us. Surprisingly, Wiens and Sonny have an average EDIT score of 30%. Yup, Mr. Wiens, Sonny, et al. aren’t eating anything or talking about what they’re eating for over 70% of each video. Whether this 30/70 ratio is intentional, the formula sure works, and it works for good reason. Food tastes better when accompanied by a great story, and all great stories have outstanding context. It’s thus no wonder that the best food-related YouTubers spend most of their videos telling us such things as the chef’s background story, details of their business, where the recipe came from, the cultural history (often indigenous) of the dish, the interesting ingredients, the suppliers of said ingredients, the quirks of how it’s prepared and cooked – the whole shebang. The more shebang the more we want to eat it, and the better it tastes when we eventually do. The genius who is Marco Pierre-White recently said on the exceptional ‘Grilling’ Podcast (hosted by Simon Rimmer) that “stories inspire, recipes can confuse”, and that the best chefs (and teachers) are always master storytellers, with an abundance of brilliant context.

The late Anthony Bourdain was a supreme provider of context, with swathes of his videos seemingly not about food at all but, all the while, layers of contextual flavours are being built. When he does eventually eat the food, it all comes together and makes total sense – a true genius. For all the stats geeks among you, Bourdain’s EDIT score is 12%, meaning he only ate and described the taste for 12% of the time during his videos, less than half the amount that Wiens, Sonny, et al. do.

Also hailing from New York City, citing Bourdain as one of his inspirations, lives an incredibly talented creator who’s rapidly perfecting the art of context, Stephen Cusato is his name. Stephen’s YouTube channel, Not Another Cooking Channel, is generally set in his kitchen, with him beautifully cooking to the camera. Unlike Bourdain, Wiens, and co, due to his kitchen being his main studio, he doesn’t have the context luxury of regularly taking us out and about to see places and meet people as much as the prementioned. Instead, Stephen creates context by weaving in brilliant stories and information as he cooks to the camera, and he’s fast becoming a master at it. Whether it be describing how and why Heston Blumenthal’s fish batter recipe is the best; the background and intricacies to the pinwheel lasagne from NYC’s legendary Don Angie restaurant; or when, slightly worse for wear on New Year’s Eve, while he was still at high school, Stephen cooks his equally worse for wear friend an inspired chicken cutlet sandwich. Whatever Stephen cooks, there’s always a delicious accompanying story.

Telling a kick-ass story while he cooks is certainly not this chap’s only talent. His recipes are divine, and he can seriously cook. He consistently demonstrates how to make all the dishes with exceptional clarity, always leaving you confident that you can replicate the dish yourself – such an important trait and one that so many ‘cook-to-camera’ shows get wrong. His videography is also beautiful. Stephen has a strong background in photography, video production, and editing – all these skills shine through in this channel. Many mega-budget food commercials could learn from his composition, lighting, editing, and food placement. But, as you know by now, our pieces are about working out what we think the secret sauce of the creator is. In our opinion, his secret sauce is context.

Potentially a sign of my slightly misspent youth, his episode about the New Year’s Eve chicken cutlet story immediately took me back to a remarkably similar incident from my adolescence, when I too attempted to cook for a friend in similar worse-for-wear circumstances. The constituent parts of this sandwich are relatively modest, comprising thin breaded chicken cutlets, salami, mozzarella, mustard, and a bun. However, when these ingredients combine with the story and context, the dish transcends the sum of its parts. Do not get me wrong, this sandwich recipe is a barnstormer, it’s just that I watched the video and then rapidly cooked the dish with considerably increased gusto due to the story. All of Stephen’s videos have such stories that inject beautiful context, helping to bring the food that he cooks alive and making the content resonate in a way that many other channels cannot replicate.

If you roughly dice some context (giving texture) and gently mix in some content, you end up with contexture. The meaning of contexture is the act, process, or manner of weaving parts into a whole. Bourdain was the master weaver, Stephen is one heck of a protegee.

N.B. If you are wondering about Stephen’s EDIT%, it is less than all the rest. Of course, this means more stories and context than all the rest, which can only be a darn good thing in our book. This channel is definitely not just another cooking show.

Stephen’s channel:   

https://www.youtube.com/@NOTANOTHERCOOKINGSHOW

The delicious worse for wear chicken cutlet video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nuN4lS7bmc

…Enjoy!