I enjoy watching ICA and I am amazed by the dishes that these guys (and gals) can come up with.
I turned it on tonight to see Alton Brown talking about his Free Range Fruitcake, which my wife makes for Christmas, but I digress.
Out comes Michael Symon and Masahura Morimoto and the secret ingredient is… fruitcake. They immediately start work to create their 5 dishes. Really?
Are we to believe that between the two of them they can come up with 10 gourmet dishes, worthy of an Iron Chef, in one hour with no prior notice of what the secret ingredient is?
So how secret really is the secret ingredient? :dubious:
Yeah I remember reading a thread started by someone who was at an Iron Chef America taping (don’t remember if it was the Straight Dope or another site), but a lot impressions you get from watching the show are false or misleading.
The contestants get a list of 3 possible secret ingredients ahead of time. Makes sense given that there’s little to no discussion among the chef and his assistance once they start. They have recipes decided upon, if it’s ingredient x, we’ll make these 4 or 5 things, if it’s y we’ll do these, and so on. Chefs are also allowed to bring their own ingredients in addition to what’s in the IC kitchen. There was an episode the other day where Morimoto had his own beer or something (had his name on the label). I guess they could potentially prepare some really complex stuff (sauces and stocks etc) ahead of time but I’m not sure if that’s against the rules.
Contestants can re-cook their dishes before judgement, so the “time limit” is kind of a sham. I think they only make 1 of each dish at first, then re-create that dish before they go up for the judging. Makes sense, as having them both finish at the same time would give whoever goes on second a disadvantage. The food would get cold.
I used to watch the Japanese Iron Chef before ICA started, and they definitely made enough for everyone, but I’m not sure if they were allowed the re-cook, if the “time limit” was staggered, or what the deal was.
Furthermore, as I understand it, the challenger choses which Iron Chef to compete against well in advance of the show. The other Iron Chefs don’t go to that taping. They appear only in stock footage, and there are stand-ins to make it look like they are there. Both the challengers and the Iron Chef make their food during the hour that they are given, and footage of that is shown on the show. However, that food is then tossed out. The challenger and the Iron Chef then make their meals again, first one of them and then the other after the first finishes. They present that food to the judges when they finish it.
I don’t know if you could call the time limit a sham. They have to make all the dishes in 1 hour. But because of the realities of filming the show takes about 8 hours to film. So some of the dishes will be sitting around for hours before they are eaten. You just can’t do that to food and expect it to be good. So they recook the food just prior to the judges tasting it. That way they get fresh food to judge. Otherwise. The challenger would have a big advantage going first. They don’t just do one plate of each. They show the plating sometimes very clearly and they make the same amount.
The original Iron Chef did not have a set number of dishes they had to make. I saw one in which the Iron Chef ended up with two dishes, and the challenger only made one. the challenger won, I believe.
This is one area where ICA definitely improved on the original. I’d much rather see a chef come up with 5 different dishes and make the copies offscreen than making five copies of one dish.
The other thing that improved on the original is getting the judges to shut the eff up (especially when one of them is always a giggling girl actress) blabbing on everything that is going on, and having just Alton and one floor reporter.