Over-the-top cooking show ‘Epic Meal Time’ sizzles on the Web

The chef at Someone Cares Soup Kitchen is accustomed to preparing meals for hundreds of people using donated meat, vegetables and fruit.

But on a recent afternoon in Costa Mesa, the chefs of Internet cooking sensation “Epic Meal Time” were raising a skeptical eyebrow.

Among the “epic” meals added to the lunch menu: Fast Food Lasagna (whose main ingredient is 45 McDonald’s cheeseburgers), the Angry French Canadian (an adaptation of the Quebec dish poutine, on this day made with French fries, bacon and cheddar cheese and topped with brown gravy and maple syrup), and TurBaconEpic, a super-size version of the Thanksgiving-themed stunt classic, in which a quail is stuffed inside a Cornish game hen, inside a chicken, inside a duck, inside a turkey — then slow-roasted inside a pig.

PHOTOS: Celebrity portraits by The Times

“We brought a whole bunch of our best-tasting recipes today to share with everyone here,” said Harley Morenstein, the host of “Epic Meal Time.” “So, I hope you enjoy it. If not, I apologize.”

This isn’t Ina Garten’s “Barefoot Contessa.” Morenstein and his cast of supporting characters aren’t seeking the perfect bechamel sauce.

They’re cooking big piles of meat, making such comically over-the-top meals as the barbecue Colosseum constructed out of ribs, cheeseburgers, hot dogs and macaroni and cheese, or a Christmas tree decorated with garland strands of chicken nuggets and 2,000 strips of bacon.

Online audiences — especially young men — eat it up. The weekly cooking show has attracted some 2.9 million subscribers on YouTube, and nearly a half-billion video views. The recent episodes “Chinese Pizza,” “The Unbalanced Breakfast” and “Country Fried Meal Time” have each had more viewers than for a recent episode of TLC’s popular “Cake Boss” or The Travel Channel’s “Man Vs. Food.” According to ratings firm Nielsen, new episodes of “Cake Boss” and “Man Vs. Food” attracted 1.5 million and 1.1 million viewers, respectively, in their initial TV outings.

PHOTOS: Hollywood back lot moments

Eager to reach the Web show’s young male demographic, Frito-Lay North America Inc.’s Doritos brand, retailer GameStop Corp., subscription service Netflix Inc. and the publisher of the “Gears of War” video game have advertised on the channel.

The Web show is not without its detractors. The advocacy group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals featured a parody video called “Vegan Meal Time” on its blog and criticized the show’s creators for “the nastiness of their gluttonous creations.”

“‘Epic Meal Time’ seems to be a proud sponsor of the obesity epidemic,” Jane Dollinger, a spokeswoman for PETA, said in a statement.

But “Epic Meal Time” has won some surprising fans who appreciate its satire of the over-serious TV cooking show. Healthful-eating advocate Jamie Oliver, who hosted ABC’s “Food Revolution,” even wrote the forward for the Web show’s forthcoming cookbook.

Morenstein, who holds a degree in elementary education from McGill University in Montreal, was developing a children’s show when he uploaded a video of him and a buddy cooking a pizza topped with melted cheese and McDonald’s hamburgers. For fun, he tacked on nutritional information (6,000 calories and over 1,000 grams of fat) and invented the “Epic Meal Time” name to capture the gastronomical excess.

The October 2010 video was a modest YouTube sensation — attracting 150,000 views and coverage in the local newspaper. The next video, in which Morenstein created the Angry French Canadian sandwich, grabbed an even bigger online viewership and earned the 6-foot-6 host the nickname “Jackass in the kitchen.”

In a bid for American viewers, Morenstein planned a Thanksgiving feast in which he created an exaggerated version of the legendary turducken. He dubbed his creation the TurBaconEpic.

“It got 2 million views in a week,” Morenstein said. “I was like, ‘OK, this is what we do for my life now.’”

In 2010, “Epic Meal Time” was accepted into YouTube’s partner program, allowing it to share in online advertising revenue. To prepare, he wrote 200 to 300 cooking ideas for such things as a variation on spaghetti and meatballs, in which the pasta is stuffed into a meatball the size of a basketball.

Now, Morenstein’s production company is profitable and supports a 10-person full-time team.

It collects revenue from advertisers attracted by its more than 30 million monthly video views, garners fees from marketers who are coming to the show’s creator to develop branded content to promote their products and services, and operates a lucrative merchandising operation that sells everything from hats, hoodies and T-shirts to, soon, cooking utensils, said Dan Weinstein, chief content officer at Collective Digital Studio, Morenstein’s management company and distribution partner.

“They’re starting to get notoriety in the zeitgeist,” said Alex Angeledes, chief revenue officer of Collective Digital Studio. “That is leading to a lot of brands saying, ‘We’re trying to figure out how to work with these guys and how we can leverage their audience.’”

Early on, Morenstein discovered the key ingredient for his recipes: bacon. YouTube viewers would replay the segments that featured bacon, so he began using it with the same caloric abandon as Julia Child once did with butter. Shortly thereafter, he incorporated the other Epic staple: booze.

“Because we couldn’t outdo ourselves in terms of all the animals that we would cook with, we decided we would cook with liquor to make up for it,” Morenstein said. “‘Epic Meal Time’ is a bacon and liquor cooking show [featuring] guys that don’t know how to cook.”

Morenstein’s next venture is a variation on the cooking competition shows “Top Chef” and “Hell’s Kitchen.” The spin-off series, “Epic Chef,” sets two culinary masters in a themed challenge such as “Epic Burger,” “Epic Mexican” and “Epic Holidays.” The chefs are given 45 minutes to impress a panel of judges that includes such personalities as Adam Gertler, a contestant in season four of “Food Network Star,” and Duff Goldman of “Ace of Cakes” along with such YouTube celebrities as Freddie Wong, iJustine and Mystery Guitar Man.

Each contestant starts with mystery ingredients and a briefcase filled with bacon.

“Top Chef” season two winner Ilan Hall said he eagerly joined the Epic Chef competition, which recently finished production in Los Angeles and is expected to be available online in December.

The guidelines stipulate that each chef will be evaluated on the taste of the meal, cooking style/pageantry, amount of liquor consumed, best use of mystery ingredient and “innovative use of bacon grease.”

“Once I heard that it was something new that the guys from ‘Epic Meal Time’ were doing, I was totally on board,” Hall said. “People say how disgusting it is. Of course — it’s a parody.”

The TurBaconEpic may have provoked some giggles among the volunteers in the Someone Cares kitchen, but it won praise in the dining room.

“I’ve eaten here for 31/2 years, and I never go back for seconds,” said a 57-year-old homeless man in a wheelchair, who asked to be identified as Alan. “This is the first time.”

dawn.chmielewski@latimes.com

MORE

INTERACTIVE: TVs highest paid stars

QUIZ: Celebrity voice overs

PHOTOS: Hollywood back lot moments