A mildly disturbing piece in the Village Voice has brought me from not bothering to watch Iron Chef America to actively avoiding it. Apparently no on-the-spot creativity is involved whatsoever, as the chefs have all the time they need to plan and test their menus in advance. Moreover, the judges don’t even taste the food cooked during the hour contest.
While no one accused the show of being as entertaining as the dubbed Japanese, was the original show rigged as bad as this is? I’d like to think it’s just the Food Network being stupid again, rather than a fundamental deception in the original franchise.
The author of the article sounded like he’s never seen any kind of TV show be taped, and much of his assertions that it appeared rigged are dubious.
Did you read the response from Ted Allen, the Queer Eye host and judge for the episode in question:
So’s Monday Night Football. I don’t mind a little cheesy elements like Chairman Kaga from the original series but I did expect the actual competition to be real. Sadly this isn’t the first time I’ve heard that Iron Chef America wasn’t really a competition.
Yes, but the chefs who came in to compete against the Irons were real chefs working in real restaurants (as are the big 3 themselves). Often the contestants were the owners of unknown little streetcorner restaurants. Just getting on the show was a huge business boost to anyone chosen, even if they didn’t win.
Now, was it rigged? I have absolutely no cites to back this up, but probably. At least to the extent of giving the chefs hints beforehand of what they’d be using. I’ve worked on both sides of the camera here, and many programs that purport to show ‘man on the street’ and ‘ordinary average viewer’ segments have actually auditioned, scripted and rehearsed everything beforehand. And many of the “Let’s stop by this little shop/restaurant that’s been getting a lot of attention recently” bits are based on who’s purchased ad space or has connections with one of the producers (when my wife was working in PR, she’d often send “information packets” about clients to magazines which would then be reprinted almost verbatim as glowing reviews of the latest trends). The primetime TV schedule in Japan is loaded down with variety shows, with some of the hotter performers appearing as regulars in a different program every single night, so spontaneity is kept to an absolute minimum to prevent falling behind schedule. There’s an incentive to prep the chefs beforehand because seeing the chefs dash to the kitchens and start whipping up menus is better TV than watching them stand around for 20 minutes going “calf’s liver? I run a fish restaurant, WTF am I supposed to do with calf’s liver?” I suppose it might be worth it to see someone completely blank out and have a nervous breakdown in the studio, but overall the safer bet is to make sure everyone knows what they’re doing.
Now, is the judging rigged? No idea. IIRC, most of the panel had no special qualifications beyond being famous. Winners didn’t return the following week, and I don’t think they received anything beyond recognition that they won, so there may not have been any incentive to rig it in either direction. As I mentioned earlier, even the chefs who lost still hung signs in their windows advertising that they’d been selected for the show.
I once read an article about the original Iron Chef that said the contestants were given a list before the show of three possible theme ingredients and told that one of them would be the ingredient on the show but not told which one. This gave the chefs time to plan three possible menus but still allowed them to say with some technical truthiness that the ingredient was a “surprise.”
It also said that the competing Iron Chef was known beforehand and that the shot of all the chefs on their platforms was canned, with only the competing chef really being present at the taping.
It didn’t say anything about recooking evyrthing for the tasting, though.
The only thing the article says that is at all “rigged” is that the contestants have some knowledge of the secret ingredient beforehand and that the Iron Chef is not selected there on the spot. However, the first had been revealed years ago. The second the second is just obvious as there is now way that the four or five very busy celebrity chefs from around the country or world would attend each taping waiting to possibly be chosen.
Other than the fact that it is set up for a television taping, and doesn’t proceed as crisply as it appears on TV (no shit, sherlock), despite the article’s sneering slant, it doesn’t reveal anything to suggest that it isn’t a genuine competition.
Besides, I saw the broadcast of the show he was at, and although the comments during the cooking suggested that the challenger was doing very well, there’s just no way anyone has anything but the slimmest chance when going against Morimoto with a fish secret ingredient.
Yeah, but think about it and it’s obvious. They have hot food. Crispy things. Delicate things sprinkled over stuff. Things cooked pink in the middle. Unless both tastings happened in the time it takes to watch them, the second chef’s food is going to be ruined by sitting under heat lamps for ages. So’s most of the first’s.
If the competition’s not about bain marie food, of course it’s got to be prepared fresh.
Beyond that, anyone remember *Iron Chef USA * with Wlliam Shatner? The food did sit out for hours, and was the worse because of it. One of the many reasons there were a lot of complaints about Iron Chef USA.
There are three complaints made about the show in the article:
The secret ingredient is known to both chefs, since they are both told long beforehand a list of three possible secret ingredients. O.K., that does mean that the competition is less exciting than I thought, but it’s not quite as big a thing as the article makes it seem.
The Iron Chef is chosen before the day of taping. So what? If the Iron Chef had been chosen on the day of taping, it would be no harder or easier for the competitor, since he is the one choosing the Iron Chef and he would know his choice for days beforehand no matter when he actually chooses the Iron Chef. All this means is that two or three Iron Chefs don’t have to stand around doing nothing during the show.
The food is cooked twice, once in the hour-long competition and a second time just before the judges get a chance to taste the food. Still, the Iron Chef and the competitor have to prepare the food once in a timed format.
The article doesn’t mention the following point:
Sometimes they throw out tapings. I read an article about a chef who came to compete and couldn’t finish his food in the hour allotted. He only finished two of the five dishes. They threw out the taping and told him that perhaps they would invite him back for another try in the future.
I did not know about the food being cooked a second time. But it makes sense. I have often wondered while watching how some of the food would hold up to sitting around for a while.
I did not think it was a secret that they knew the igredient before the taping. How else would they just happen to have the proper igredients to go with the secret igredient? I’ve know that they were told the igredient before the taping from the beginning. I read it somewhere. I didn’t have to be an investigative reporter.
But I am shocked that he is not really the Chairman’s nephew!
ETA Rigged is wrong. Rigged implies that the outcome is fixed. I see nothing that says the winner is picked beforehand, just that the format is not quite what it seems. So for what it’s worth it seems that if you win it is because you impressed Mo Rocca with your cooking, not because the producers wanted you to win.
I’m just chiming in to agree that, as a long-time fan of both the Japanese and American series, none of this is surprising. I don’t have the official Iron Chef book with me, but **Diogenes **is correct, the guests on the original series were given a shortlist of three possible “secret” ingredients in advance. “Chairman Kaga” (real name: Takeshi Kaga), was and is a well-known actor. He’s voiced anime, acted in musicals (starring as Jean Valjean in Les Miserables, for example), and would have generally been known to the audience of the original show. I don’t see why anyone’s surprised that the fellow hosting this show is an actor too. Even recooking the dishes isn’t a surprise. On the original show, with the exception of hotpots and other shared dishes, it was clear to me that during the timed portion, each chef was making one plate of each dish for the cameras. Sure, the assistants would prepare multiple plates, but the fiddly elements of presentation were rushed only once. Considering the heat of studio lights and the breeze created by studio HVAC systems, I imagine that was the only way to prevent a terrible mess.
That’s interesting. I remember that one (Italian?) chef on Iron Chef America didn’t finish all his dishes, but he was invited back to try a second time. He was a great sport, though, so I suppose he was called back on account of his telegenic personality.
On The Next Iron Chef it seemed that all the contests and ingredents were a complete surprise. Except for probably the finale which was run like a regular episode of Iron Chef. The only reality show in a long time that I have enjoyed.
According to comments made by Alton Brown, the original IC was even more rigged than the American version. While the American contestants are given a list of 2 or 3 possible ingredients, the Japanese show would provide a “list” of 2 or 3 possible ingredients:
It is not as if the Food Network tries to really hide any of the supposed shocking revelations in the Voice article. There have been at least two “Behind the Scenes” shows on Food Network which discuss how the production is done.
That’s and the fact that the Food Network is even more shamelessly commercial and self promoting than the usual television network this shouldn’t be a surprise. Iron Chef is nothing more than a chance to give the bigger cookbook sellers more prime face time. Mario Batali, Cat Cora, Alton Brown and Bobby Flay all have huge numbers of Food Network sponsored cook books for sale at any given time. Iron Chef is nothing more than a clever and cute commerical. I would like to be a judge though.
It’s obvious to me that the Iron Chef would be pre-picked and only slightly less obvious the theme ingredient would be semi-known. The part of the article that kills the show, for me, is what is described as the lack of urgency–since the dishes will be cooked again, the hour-long competition doesn’t really matter. The time pressure is would puts the drama into the show, so knowing that isn’t important lessens the enjoyment.
This doesn’t really bother me. What the chefs are creating are one-offs, or dishes that are unique to the occasion. They might have prepared the recipes in advance, but these still shouldn’t be dishes you can walk off the street and order in their restaurants. Preparing five one-off dishes in an hour in an unfamiliar kitchen and presenting them nicely is still a challenge, even if you get to remake them later. And I suppose there’s a sort of honor system, in that you can’t massively change the contents of the dish between the one-hour version and the remake. If you decided to do sea-urchin sorbet with wasabi, I imagine you couldn’t change your mind later and serve lemon sorbet with a side of sea-urchin.
But that could make such a great show:
“I liked the way you served the Froot Loops crushed on a bed of poi and Sea Salt. The combination of flavors and textures was unique, with the tang of the salt and the sourness of the poi contasting with the sweetness of the Froot Loops.”
