I have a confession: I watch trash TV.

Not much of it, just one show. And a colleague insists that the show I watch isn’t nearly as trashy as some others.

If that is true, I don’t want to see the others.

The show that I am hooked on is “Below Deck,” which apparently is so popular that it has spawned three other shows that look to be carbon copies, but are shot in different locations. It is a “reality” show, with as many quotation marks as can reasonably be fit around the word.

The idea is sort of like “Upstairs, Downstairs,” only the manor house is a luxurious and sometimes a little tacky mega yacht that the upstairs people rent for a few days at a time. Downstairs is the hard-working crew of the yacht, or at least most of them are hard-working.

And that’s part of the fun of watching. The producers of the show carefully select the exceptionally attractive crew members they want in their cast. It is clear that the crew-cast is chosen to wring out the maximum amount of emotional drama possible. So at least one person each season does not pull his or her weight.

Some viewers watch for the inevitable conflicts among crew-cast members and the endless complaints that they are not being given enough respect. Some viewers watch to see if the people who charter the boat, who typically have more money than they know what to do with, will get drunk enough to embarrass themselves on national television.

Me, I watch for the chefs.

Each yacht has a chef who is responsible for feeding the six or eight charter guests, the 10 crew members we see on the show and the two or three crew members (first mate, engineers) we don’t see on the show because they are somewhat older and insufficiently attractive.

That’s a lot of cooking for one person in a fairly small galley, albeit one equipped with what must be massive walk-in refrigerators and freezers. The goal of the crew is to give the charter guests whatever they ask for at all times, so if someone wants beluga caviar on octopus legs with asparagus fronds, the chef is expected to make beluga caviar on octopus legs with asparagus fronds.

And you can almost always be certain that it will be the best-looking, best-tasting beluga caviar on octopus legs with asparagus fronds that you have ever seen, even if you are not entirely certain what asparagus fronds are (they’re the fernlike leaves of the plant).

With a few notable exceptions — the one who microwaved steaks, the one who practically served nothing but beef cheeks — the chefs chosen for the job are masters of the kitchen. It is thrilling (for me, at least) to watch them whip up amazing meals in hardly any time at all.

The cameras rarely show much of the cooking process, presumably because other viewers are not as interested in it as I am and it would take valuable time away from complaints about not being respected. We can only judge how good the food is by the reactions from the charter guests, many of whom proclaim the meals the best they have ever had, and by the descriptions of the dishes themselves:

Scallops and yuzu ponzu with smoked nori served in a shell for dinner.

Eggs benedict with butter-poached lobster for breakfast.

Zeppole with whipped ricotta cheese, mascarpone, blood orange zest, pistachios and honey for dessert.

Anything that sounds that good has to taste good, right?

I stand in awe of the food the chefs turn out, especially given the circumstances, though I am not necessarily a fan of the chefs as people. Genius sometimes comes with a prickly attitude.

I say that with all due respect, of course. Heaven help anyone who doesn’t show the proper amount of respect.

OK, I also watch it for the complaining crew and the drunk guests.

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