Iron Chef (America) Question

Cafe Society
1

I’ve just discovered Iron Chef for myself and have been watching a couple of original and Iron Chef America episodes over the weekend. Now I was wondering about one thing:

In Battle: Eggs, Wolfgang Puck has his assistant sous-chef with him and she basically prepares the dessert on her own. Morimoto, on the other hand, wastes a lot of time sawing all the ostrich eggs open by himself, which could have easily been passed on to one of his assistants.

So, are there rules at all regarding the assistants? What things are they allowed/supposed to do? Or are there no rules and the decision lies solely within the discretion of the chef? I guess there wouldn’t be a lot of danger of the minions doing all the work since every chef wants to keep a high profile, but having the assistant prepare the dessert seems cutting it rather close.

2

I noticed that too, and it didn’t seem quite fair (wasn’t she actually a professional chef, to boot?). I’ve never heard of specific rules regarding the assistants, though, so for all I know Puck was within his bounds.

This is the only time I remember this happening, though. I imagine each chef wants to create completely personalized dishes, so usually the helpers only deal with labor instead of creation.