Babish Culinary Universe

Babish Culinary Universe (BCU; ), formerly Binging with Babish, is a YouTube cooking channel created by American filmmaker Andrew Rea (alias Oliver Babish) that recreates recipes featured in film, television, and video games in the "Binging with Babish" series, as well as more traditional recipes in the "Basics with Babish" series. The first video in the series was uploaded on February 10, 2016.
History.
The YouTube channel was created by Rea as "Binging with Babish" on August 21, 2006; his name was inspired by "The West Wing" character Oliver Babish. Three videos unrelated to "Binging with Babish" were uploaded to the account, two in 2007 and one in 2010. The first episode of "Binging with Babish" aired on February 10, 2016, which is about a "Parks and Recreation" burger cook-off.
Its first video to be widely circulated aired on November 14, 2016, making the "Moistmaker" sandwich from "Friends". The channel's growth has been driven by fans promoting its videos on Reddit and other social media platforms. Rea created a Patreon account to earn an income, and after reaching a monthly $10,000 goal, quit his day job to work full-time on "Binging with Babish", which is released weekly on Tuesdays. He spent $6,000 on a Sony digital camera, lights and editing software, and does the production, editing and narration for the videos. The cost of each episode, according to Rea, "varies wildly" because of the ever-changing variety of food and ingredients used.
Rea posts recipes for the dishes on his website and on October 3, 2017, he published a cookbook titled "Eat What You Watch: A Cookbook for Movie Lovers", containing 40 recipes featured in film. He started the series "Basics with Babish" on October 12, 2017, teaching preparation of basic recipes, stocking up on and using essential tools and equipment for cooking, as well as a variety of cooking techniques.
On March 19, 2019, at the end of a video that involved recreating the iconic cake from the "Portal" series of video games, Rea premiered a trailer for his new show, "Being with Babish", which premiered on March 22, 2019.
For April Fools' Day 2019, he released a video titled "Binging with Babish: Brock's Donuts from Pokémon," where he made rice ball-shaped doughnuts to make fun of 4Kids Entertainment changing rice balls in the original Pokémon anime into doughnuts. This was immediately followed by a video where he "corrected" his error by making proper onigiri.
On October 22, 2019, Rea published his second cookbook titled "Binging with Babish: 100 Recipes Recreated from Your Favorite Movies and TV Shows", containing 100 pop-culture recipes from his series.
On September 24, 2020, Rea introduced a new series, "Stump Sohla", hosted by Sohla El-Waylly, as well as the channel's name change to "Babish Culinary Universe".
Shows.
"Binging with Babish".
During each episode, Rea prepares step-by-step instructions on the preparation of film and television-related meals. When "Binging with Babish" premiered on February 10, 2016, it was filmed at the kitchen of Rea's New York City apartment. Beginning with the "Meat Tornado from Parks & Rec" in August 2020, the show moved to his home studio in Brooklyn, NY, with a voiceover added in post-production. When "Binging with Babish" premiered on February 10, 2016, Rea used the opening lines of the "Frasier" theme song; "Tossed Salads and Scrambled Eggs", performed by Kelsey Grammer, and was used during the first 20 episodes of season 1. Eventually, the "Frasier" theme was removed entirely due to copyright issues, and beginning with the 21st episode of season 1, Rea started monetizing the videos. The show began with a clip of the food item being recreated, followed by Rea entering the kitchen while welcoming the viewers. Each episode contains dry humor and is paced at a fast speed. After creating the dish as it originally appeared, some episodes include Rea's interpretation of the recipe.
The show has featured many guest appearances from other YouTubers who cook alongside Rea, such as "Cocktail Chemistry's" Nick Fisher, Ashwin Ramdas from "Ashwin Enjoys Nature", "You Suck At Cooking", Brad Leone from Bon Appétit, and First We Feast's Sean Evans. Rea has also appeared as a guest star on Evans's series "Hot Ones". Rea's 4 million subscribers video featured a special guest appearance by Iron Chef Masaharu Morimoto, who assisted Rea in creating the Death Sandwich from "Regular Show" (achieved by adding fugu).
On some episodes, Rea hosted actors from the shows and films the recipes are sourced from. As part of production on their cooking series "The Chef Show" (on which Rea appears in multiple episodes), filmmaker/actor Jon Favreau and chef Roy Choi appeared in an episode to make chocolate lava cakes from Favreau's film "Chef", one of Rea's favorite films which he has featured numerous times on the show. Favreau ended the episode by presenting Rea with the carving fork prop used in a prominent scene from the film. Favreau would later reappear in an episode where Rea recreated the blue macarons from a of "The Mandalorian" written by Favreau. Maisie Williams of "Game of Thrones" fame appeared in an episode where she and Rea attempted to recreate Direwolf Bread. Williams, a fan of "Binging with Babish", arranged her guest appearance after messaging multiple YouTube food channels (including "Bon Appétit") about appearing on one of their shows while she was in New York. During the COVID-19 pandemic, actor H. Jon Benjamin appeared over video call to make margaritas from "Archer".
"Basics with Babish".
"Basics with Babish" focuses on basic recipes. The videos are numbered, typically include a sponsor spot, and have a theme song. The series is in a video cookbook format for beginners. Guests on the series have included Floyd Cardoz, Joshua Weissman, Roy Choi, Greg Titian from "How To Drink", and Sohla El-Waylly (prior to her officially joining the channel).
"Stump Sohla".
"Stump Sohla" is the third regular show added to the Babish Culinary Universe and features Sohla El-Waylly. The series aired for 10 episodes airing on Saturdays and features Sohla making dishes in a randomly chosen format or theme.
"Botched by Babish".
"Botched by Babish" is the fourth regular show added to the Babish Culinary Universe. In this series, Rea corrects errors in recipes previously featured on "Binging" and "Basics". The first episode premiered on May 18, 2021 and featured Canadian chef and internet personality Matty Matheson, correcting a recipe for poutine Rea had presented on "Basics" in September 2019.
Andrew Rea.
Andrew Douglas Rea (born September 2, 1987) was born in Mendon, New York and raised in Rochester, to parents Annie and Douglas Rea. He has an older brother, David. His nephew, Christopher, made an appearance in one of his videos portraying a younger version of himself. He is of Polish, Italian and Welsh descent. Rea was taught to cook at a young age by his mother, who died when he was 11.
In 2009, Rea graduated with a BA in Film Studies from Hofstra University and later worked as a visual effects artist for SwitchFX Inc.
Rea was married but has since been divorced, something that he avoids talking about out of respect for his ex-wife's privacy. He is currently in a relationship with Jessica Opon, who is also a producer on the channel. On May 12th, 2021, they announced their engagement. 