Inside Iron Chef America
Posted by Ramsey Merritt on Edible TV.
Robert Sietsema from The Village Voice attended a taping of Iron Chef America at the Food Network studios; here are some excerpts from his write-up “Iron Chef Boyardee”:
The taping began promptly at 9 a.m. …The choice of Iron Chef had clearly been made much earlier, because two of the Iron Chefs standing on the pedestals in roiling clouds of fog were out-and-out imposters. After the chef doubles dismounted the pedestals and skulked off, a tired-looking Morimoto—who blinked incessantly and looked bored by the whole proceeding—posed next to the challenger.
At this point, the cry “Quiet on the set!” went up… The audience watched, enthralled, for the first few minutes… Several things slowly dawned on us as we watched the taping. The participants went about their tasks methodically but unhurriedly, as if they had all the time in the world… We realized that the chefs had known the identity of the main ingredient all along…
…With only minutes in the real-time hour to go… an omniscient and vaguely Japanese-sounding female voice counted out the minutes remaining in the contest, which ended in a blaze of flashing strobes and frenzied commentary. Then the entire operation went slack. I expected the dishes to be whisked over to the judges for tasting, but where were the judges? …Eventually, after 45 minutes or so, they took their seats for the next part of the taping.
In most cases, the recipes were being executed a second time for the judges, mostly by the sous chefs. What was the point of the race if the dishes were casually recooked for judging an hour later?
When the champion was announced, Morimoto prevailed. The audience was never given the actual scores. Instead, it was ushered out immediately and unceremoniously, since a second Iron Chef contest was about to be taped.
For the article in its entirety, go here.
