In my house, watching "Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives" is a cherished pastime. Besides mercilessly mocking Guy Fieri, the show’s eccentric and intrepid host, the highlight is undoubtedly the close-up shots of greasy hamburgers, French fries drenched in gooey, melted cheese, and ice cream sundaes dripping in warm chocolate fudge. Hours pass with us spent drooling over the images flashing on the screen. One after another until you can’t even distinguish one restaurant from another. It’s just an endless assault of nondescript gluttony. After a marathon of “Triple D” as Guy calls it, I can’t tell you the names of more than two or three of the restaurants featured or even the names of the dishes they offer. Just that I’m starving.

Most cooking shows nowadays on the Food Network or the Cooking Channel fall into one of two categories: those concerned with accessibility and those concerned with pure entertainment.

Shows like "30 Minute Meals with Rachel Ray," "Barefoot Contessa," or "Everyday Italian" seek to carry on the tradition founded by Julia Child: bringing the art of cooking into the home kitchen. They take complex recipes and concepts and water them down enough for the general public to replicate and hold their hand through each and every step until they’ve reproduced a carbon copy of the original dish. It’s always “Such and such made easy!” or “This or that in 30 minutes or less for under $2 per person!” Everyone can be a chef with just a smidge of desire to eat something other than takeout, regardless of financial situation or talent level.

On the other hand, there are the shows that appeal to epicureans and non-epicureans alike such as my beloved "Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives," "Chopped," and "Top Chef." The high speed, adrenaline-pumping action and exotic ingredient-usage of the game shows almost make you forget that you’re watching a cooking show at all. And no one can deny the pure entertainment value of living vicariously through a montage of a bleach-blond guido riding around the country in a red 1967 Chevy Camaro and chowing down on oily American cuisine.

Sure, this is all entertaining, but where is the art? Gastronomy, the science of good eating, has been dying out and replaced with food culture for the masses. Food blogging is being favored over classical training. People would rather watch a self-taught chef than one who owns a Michelin star restaurant. Folks will opt for a program about burgers and fries over one that details the preparing of a truffle risotto or beef Bourguignon.

Netflix’s original series "Chef’s Table" takes an approach to cuisine in a manner that is both refreshing and paying tribute to the traditions of the past. Both seasons one and two are divided into six episodes, each an exposé on a different world-renowned chef. Each installment provides an in-depth profile of the chef’s specialty, personal background, and culinary vision. There is a strong interest as well in the individual psychological motives behind the chef’s innovation, such as how Massimo Bottura’s love of art influences the offerings at his restaurant Osteria Francescana in Modena, Italy. Or how Magnus Nilsson uses the meager harvest of desolate rural Sweden to his advantage at Fäviken in Jämtland County.

For the chefs featured, cooking is not just whipping together a quick something for dinner or slapping a burger on the grill. Food is their work, their pleasure, their passion, and their life. They meet face-to-face with the suppliers of their ingredients if they aren’t raising or growing them themselves like Dan Barber of Blue Hill in Manhattan. They spent their youths studying their crafts and taking on often grueling apprenticeships with seasoned masters. They learn the tradition and then break it, acknowledging that gastronomy is a field in flux and refusing to allow it to remain stagnant. Ingredients, plants and animals alike, are treated with the utmost care and respect. The chefs know how to manipulate each component of a dish in such a way to highlight its own unique flavors while also creating a coherent and harmonious masterpiece.

And while there is nothing wrong with some simple, unfussy comfort food every once in a while, food is an unappreciated and often disregarded art form. Some tactful maneuvering in the kitchen can make all the difference in terms of taste. It takes a great deal of skill as well as a discerning palate to know how to properly combine flavors, textures, and temperatures. Synchronization in a plate is a highly sought after yet rarely achieved feat and it takes more culinary dexterity than one would think. Like painters and sculptors, chefs study for years to strike a balance in their art. An exceptional meal can be a memory that lasts a lifetime.

Food is fuel and relaxation, but it can also be art and should be regarded as such. If you are looking to understand the daring, groundbreaking, psychologically-driven, imaginative side of cooking, "Chef’s Table" offers a fascinating new lens through which to examine what we put into our bodies and how it can be nurturing in more ways than one.