[live_to_cook]

My that topic is lousy English, sorry.

Should be: "Which Iron Chef episode would you have judged?"

Food TV is running the 24-hour New Year's Day Iron Chef marathon, which made me wonder. Let's face it, the program is so that armchair chefs can fantasize about being there -- and getting to taste the results.

Which episode do you wish you could've judged?

I have to stick with the recent suckling pig battle, where the challenger offered (among his five dishes) a layered pork belly sort of sandwich around fancy mushrooms, prosciutto, etc. ... and Chen Kenichi offered tiny spare ribs steeped in cola, smoked and deep fried ... among all the other goodness.

There were other more elegant dishes but my memory isn't that great because I was focused on not gnawing my arm off.

[This message has been edited by Live_to_cook (edited 12-27-2000).]

 

[layjo]

Right now I'm watching the "Bannana Battle".

 

[mezzaluna]

I got to see the giant lobsters episode. (We were on vacation and I don't get Food TV at home, so that's the only episode I've seen since last December.) The crab and lobster brains didn't appeal, but the prociutto wrapped 'sausage' did. I was puzzled by them having actors and a fortune teller do the judging. What qualifies a person to be a judge on that show? And where did that host come from???? He has the creepiest expressions, IMHO.

 

[live_to_cook]

If you haven't seen Japanese game shows before or seen Iron Chef a bunch of times it can come off as quite odd. The whole backstory to the show, rituals, etc.

It's not meant to be a super-serious competition. It's meant to give people something to ooooh and aaaah over, and in that was it often succeeds, at least in my house. I'm not saying the judging is rigged, because I'm not aware of any evidence to that effect, and I don't think it is.

But they don't try to rigorously control the scientific impartiality of the scores either.

 

[live_to_cook]

For the record, after the marathon, I changed my wished-for judging episode:

Mishima Beef Battle

Super-premium Kobe beef, $12,000 a head, only 20 produced each year, makes regular Kobe look like dog food.

Looked like you could have eaten the sirloin with a spoon, sprinkled with a little salt.

Convinced me to try to dry-age the standing rib roast in the fridge for that extra degree of tastiness.