Iron Chef America

After Janne pointed the series out to us, we've been watching Iron Chef with facination. It's a cooking show, but it's got nothing to do with cooking really - it's like what pro-wrestling is to Greco-Roman wrestling: it's dramatic, camp, glamourous and fun and not to be taken seriously in any way. It's about showing off with incredients, with flashy cooking styles and most unbelievable dishes. There are three Iron Chefs and one of them is chosen to battle against the famous guest chef using the given theme incredient. All the viewers have their favourite Iron Chef, and I must go with Iron Chef Chinese Chen Kenichi - I'm a big fan of Chinese food and Chen-san makes the most gorgeous looking Schezuan food I'd just love to taste.

So when they announced the new series Iron Chef America, we were a bit dubious. Americans are famous for ruining really cool concepts, and apparently the previous attempt to import Iron Chef was one of those - but this time all signs were good: they had done a trial run last spring with couple of episodes and those had been really succesful. This time they had kept the original concept pretty much to every t and i, and the trailers looked certainly busy. So last Sunday we watched the first episode and today the second, and here are my thoughts on the new series.

The original show is very pompous with minutes of ceremony and all that has been pretty much stripped away on ICA. Show is hosted by the new chairman and marshal arts expert Mark Dacascos (who just happens to be the nephew of the original show's chairman Kaga), and within a minute we're on to revealing the theme incredient. The Iron Chef is pre-chosen (in the original series the challenger gets to choose) and then it's down to business. The actual kitchen stadium is almost identical with camera crews running about, and there are two commentators on the floor who comment on the happenings in the kitchen - the three judges are introduced but do not take part in the commentary. The clock ticks, and after an hour the judges get to taste the food and make the judgement.

Ok, I have to admit I miss at least some of the self-important ceremonies in the beginning. The original IC's five or so minutes is overkill, but I'd like to hear more about the challenger and the Iron Chef chosen. The kitchen stadium the same thing bothers me - it's very plain... maybe it just takes getting used to, but it still looks to me as if something was missing. I miss the commentator panel (although two commentators they do have are quite skilled).

There are quite a few things this new series does well, and some of them even better. I like the "versus scoresheet" of the Iron Chef and the challenger (very pro-wrestling) that displays the chefs' styles and achievements. The judging is in my opion done better than the original format - the chef themself gets to introduce the dishes and talk quite openely with the judges, that I think is a good idea. I also like seeing different styles of chefs - in original IC we tended to get two types: Japanese and French, and some Thai and Korean thrown into the mix. In ICA we've already had a Mexican and a Latin American chefs as challengers and I find that really refreshing - today the challenger even made a dish I've sometimes made: a paella with chorizo thrown in. And I also like the way they have explained how the points system actually works and how much points are awarded in each category (after tens of episodes I still have no idea how the marking system works in the origínal IC).

All in all, ICA probably slightly more "serious" (if I can use the word in this context) than it's predecessor and therefore a bit less fun. There have initialy been made 10 new episodes, and we'll most likely watch them all.

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