OK, you may hate me because I enjoy watching Iron Chef America. It’s good brainless entertainment.
On the recent Battle Pineapple, we had two strong chefs making a variety of dishes. So far so good. But who do they get to judge?
Keyshawn Johnson, a former football player who owns several restaurants
Patton Oswalt, who voiced the lead in *Ratatouille *
Isabel Gonzalez, the editor of “In Style” magazine
This isn’t even the B-team; this is down towards the high-scoring letters in Scrabble.
I felt sorry for the chefs, in that they worked hard for a couple of hours to have their food judged by people who order their steaks well-done. Hell, even the pretentious and execrable Andrew Knowlton would have been better than this.
So is this just an anomaly, or has Iron Chef America finally reached the point of no return?
Battle Pineapple was excellent. The wife and I opined that we would actually eat most of the offerings, which is amazing since IC usually rates about 30% or less in edibility for us. Yeah, the judging pool was lame, but the chefs should have to adapt to that. Not everybody they cook for is going to be a gourmet.
The original Iron Chef had as regular judges a fortune teller and a member of the Japanese Diet who believes that the thing that separates human beings from the rest of the animals is that we’re the only species to wear pants. So it’s not like there’s a really high bar to meet.
I kinda like having the chefs preparing for people with ordinary palates now and again… It’s part of the challenge it would seem to make dishes more “acceptable” to the average person than the off the wall crap that most would never consider on a dare (Ted Allen’s look of horror when Chris Cosentino explained how to crack open the skull and suck out the chicken brains in Battle Garlic was priceless)…
Not to mention the break from Jeffrey Steingarten and Andrew Knowlton (G-d I want to punch him in the head every time I see him) is a GOOD thing.
So what are the actual prizes in Iron Chef? As near as I can tell, it’s pretty well just a showcase. Winner/loser doesn’t really matter. I’d love to be invited to “compete” and be the guy who tells Andrew Knowlton to shut his stupid fucking face, or get it pushed in. Man, my restaurant (if I owned one) would be swimming in customers in no time.
Yeah, because only gourmands know not to order steaks that way. :rolleyes:Why couldn’t we be lucky enough to have you on the jury instead of those neanderthals?
What’s wrong with ordering steaks well-done? They’re more tender that way, as long as you don’t get a pretentious chef who deliberately sabotages the order.
A well-done steak is noticeably tougher than rare. I find the easiest way to check steak for the proper doneness is the method where you press it lightly and compare the firmness to that of the fleshy part of your hand just by the thumb. If you hold your hand open and press it, that’s the firmness of rare. Close your thumb to your middle finger and press there to get medium. Close pinky to thumb to get well-done.
Idlewild, I didn’t see the episode in question, but Keyshawn’s sole criterion doesn’t sound that bad. The chefs are supposed to highlight the secret ingredient, and if you’re not tasting it/noticing the texture in a dish, that dish doesn’t meet the requirements.
Captain Amazing, the fortune teller is only there when they can’t get the culinary critic, I thought. And is the pants-man the Lower House Member?
Absurd judging panels are par-for-the-course with Iron Chef, I think. I watched an episode of original Iron Chef today: Battle Jinhua Pork. Except for the culinary critic, none of the voting panel had heard of Jinhua before- it was an actor, an actress, and the near-mandatory Lower House Member. I’ve heard of it, and I don’t even have a huge interest in Chinese specialty meats. Last night I watched the original Battle Abalone: some of the abalone were so big they cost $300 each in 1997! Yet the judging panel, except the culinary critic, was a photographer, an actor, and an actress.
If anything, Iron Chef America tries harder to get panelists who are knowledgeable about food.
I’ve had some well-done steaks that were almost falling off the fork, they were so tender. But some chefs have gotten the idea into their heads that well-done is supposed to be tough, so whenever someone orders well-done they start with the toughest, lowest-quality piece of meat they can find in the kitchen, that they wouldn’t even give to a dog otherwise. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Yes, but aside from being happy he tried sweetbreads, “This has a lot of pineapple”/“I don’t really taste pineapple” was pretty much ALL he had to share. To the point that my husband and I both found it quite humourous. Perhaps you had to be there.
I am so sick of those two! Those pretentious snots seem to have nothing better to do than criticize everything and pick fights on the judging panel.
But Alton Brown, he’s so much fun! He makes the show IMHO. I actually had a dream last night where I was walking through a hotel lobby and I saw him drinking coffee, but I was carrying a three year old over my shoulder (I don’t have kids in real life) and had to deliver him to our hotel room and when I returned, Mr. Brown was no longer there.
They don’t give incredibly shitty cuts of meat to people who order well-done. Just, when the several-dozen pound shipment of meat comes in for the day, the chef might notice that some cuts look nicer than others. They use the nicer cuts with rare and medium-rare orders and save the worse-looking cuts for well-done. It’s not like we’re talking dog-food here. Just a gradient of restaurant-quality meat. And I’m sure this isn’t universal or anything.
And when you cook a nice steak at home, rare or medium rare is laughably juicier and more flavorful. Have fun with whatever you like, though.
ETA: I didn’t mean for the last sentence to be snarky.
The only thing that annoyed me about the show was Patton. Don’t get me wrong; I think he’s a great comedian but damn! You don’t have to be funny every frick’n time you open your mouth! Just give your opinion and move on. :rolleyes:
