Continued from here and here.

And so we come to our last two nominees— both of them pretty straightforward.

Breadtopia

Breadtopia is a site devoted to demonstrating and teaching how to make bread, run by a guy named Eric who looks (and dresses) like Clint Eastwood, but thankfully seems more easygoing as a teacher. There’s no great entertainment value here, it’s just solid as hell at teaching you breadmaking techniques; he speaks well and to the point, and the simple videos show what to do clearly and at some length. You can also buy a lot of the tools he uses from the site. Nobody will watch these for fun, but as someone who makes bread, I’m glad to have found them.

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Crash Test Kitchen

Husband and wife from former British colony nation who make oddball snacks in their kitchen on video— haven’t we done this once already? Crash Test Kitchen has an Australian couple rather than a Canadian one, and in the video above they’re making an Australian monstrosity called a sausage roll rather than an American one (Frito pie), but otherwise, the similarities are striking. The filmmaking is noticeably more fluid; the couple is less adorable (nothing against them, but they’re not as cute as the Food Tease pair). They do a nice job of showing the details you really need to see to do things right, as in this Christmas duck video:

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So who would I vote for? Maangchi is still my favorite, with runner-up honors going to Breadtopia for the high quality of its instruction, and Food Tease because the people are charming, although it’s only fair as an instructional video per se. That said, I know I’ve seen many other fascinating videos out there beyond the cooking instructional genre, more colorful in their depiction of our food world than these mostly kitchen-based videos; and even given its focus on regional cuisine, it’d be great to see Saveur push the boundaries next year and take in wider turf… maybe even a video series devoted to the variety and culture of a specific region, say. If only I could think of one!