Iron Chef US: The Shatner Edition

[Preet Baba x]

Apparently there is to be an American version of Iron Chef, hosted by William Shatner:

"Mustard-seed TV"

http://www.dallasnews.com/lifestyles/food/380621_foodtv_31liv.A.html

[Michelle Ng x]

Heaven help us. Soon there will be no more real cooking shows on TV, only cooking comedy shows, cooking game shows, and eventually maybe cooking music videos.

[Liza x]

They've approached some very serious chefs to be a part of this American version, which has been licensed through Fuji TV, the owners of the original Iron Chef series. I've heard the lineup is still up in the air but know that quite a few famous chefs were being approached.

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Liza

[Michelle Ng x]

I'm sure the show will be highly entertaining. But it will also be another brick in the wall of the decline of the educational mission of food programming. The Iron Chefs are serious chefs too, in real life, but on the show they are merely entertainers, a circus act.

[Liza x]

Once I got past the window-dressing, I found the Iron Chef shows very educational. I appreciate they way they often deconstruct ingredients, and they way they use more parts of it than most other chefs. That being said, I also find it great camp!

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Liza

[Michelle Ng x]

A conscientious viewer can extract the educational value from anything, but I assure you most in Iron Chef's audience aren't watching to learn and aren't learning anything of value. Mostly they just laugh on account of self-deprecating and borderline racist stereotypes perpetuated by the producers of the show. I predict the American version will be a failure because it doesn't give any opporunity to laugh at those funny talking Asians with bad taste and that is the big draw of Iron Chef. But if it succeeds it will be taken as more evidence that real cooking shows should be eliminated in favor of joke entertainment.

[B Edulis x]

Gosh, Michelle. I'm an Iron Chef fan, and I find it endlessly fascinating, and fun. It's an amazing window into Japanese culture and I really don't feel that the participants "talk funny" or "have bad taste." The language is odd, by turns surprising, humorous and poetic. The taste is different than mine, and that's interesting, too. Just because it's different, I don't think it's bad. Do you?

The people I know who enjoy Iron Chef aren't bigots. I know a 10-year-old girl who has become an adventurous eater from watching the show! Everyone on the show is having fun, the viewers are having fun. Why can't good cooking also be joyous?

That said, I don't know whether I will like the American version. For all the circus-like hoopla, the original has an innocence about it. Americans won't be able to pull it off without the contemporary crutch of pseudo-irony. Also, I'm afraid that they'll all act like Bobby Flay -- high test cooking. We'll see....

(Edited by B Edulis at 7:51 pm on July 20, 2001)

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B. Edulis

[Roger Lee x]

Whoa. Is there some kind of empirical evidence I've missed seeing about what "most" of  Iron Chef's audience are getting out of this show?  Most of the people I've personally spoken to about the show are astonished by the quantity and quality of what gets produced in just one hour, bemused by the almost comical seriousness of the competition, and fascinated by the range of ingredients that the show uses.

As for asian racial stereotypes, well let's face it, the Japanese are lovely people with a beautiful and unique culture, but a bit odd. Even other asians tend to feel that way about them. After all we are talking about a country that went from keeping all things foreign resolutely out for hundreds of years to adopting and adapting all things foreign in a historical blink of an eye, a people who went from being rapacious conquerors and warriors who neither asked for nor gave quarter to the most tractable and biddable of conquered peoples in literally a day.

[Michelle Ng x]

If you want to delude yourselves into thinking Iron Chef could retain one tenth of its audience if it didn't make Japanese people look like a bunch of clowns, fine. I've suffered through three Iron Chef parties and observed enough people laughing at (not with) the show to see what's going on. This is not a cultural exchange, or pure joy expressed at the beautiful art of cooking. It is humiliation for money and ratings.

[B Edulis x]

Well, I wasn't saying that I stood for all viewers, just me and my friends. And of course, there are always oafs that will make fun of anything in order to feel superior. But I hope, Michelle, that it might make you feel a little better to know that there are lots of IC fans that truly do adore the show (or maybe you think it's worse :)  ). We actually had a party and videoed an homage to program -- "Battle Leftover!" It's amazing to me that anyone would go to the trouble to throw a party just to make fun of something.....

I'm a great lover of many manifestations of kitsch, folk art, pop culture, and collisions of cultures. I think "good taste" is overrated. One thing I've noticed is that when people think I'm making fun of an object of my admiration, it's because they think the object is tacky or inferior. Sometimes things go beyond ugly and come out the other side to beautiful. Sometimes "bad taste" opens new aesthetic doors.

I guess I'm ranting a little, but I think it's an important subject, and interactions between cultures is one of the things that spins my world, makes life interesting.

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B. Edulis

[Fat Guy]

I'm a bit curious how you tell when someone is laughing at something instead of with it.  But you certainly have a point that the show is all about ratings.  But how do you explain the success of the show in it's native market?  If it were strictly a parade of racist ideas, would it have success in Japan?

Sure, it can seem funny to see lip synching.  But if non-Japanese see any humor in it, I feel it comes far more from the somewhat absurd idea that cooking can be a "battle".  You are 100% correct that the show doesn't put the best face on cooking or adaquately promote or educate the process of cooking.  But since the show is mostly a product of Japanese producers and made with a Japanese market in mind, I hope you can be tolerant of someone's opinion that because the show is a bit odd that perhaps Japanese culture is a bit odd.  I don't think there is any hate behind any of these reactions from people, and I think the smarter ones among us know that there is much more to the culture than a single silly TV show.

[Carolyn Tillie x]

Michelle;

Not all Iron Chef fans are so banal. Being here in Southern California, I used to watch Iron Chef YEARS ago when it was broadcast on the local International station without subtitles or dubbing (I still have some on tape). Without understanding a word of Japanese, I learned a great deal about cooking by just watching and experimenting.  I do regret the commercialization of a show that I have long-since loved, but MY personal Iron Chef parties were with foodies and chefs who obtained a great deal by just watching that show. Yes, we laughed. But we also learned.

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Carolyn Tillie

[Fat Guy]

Caroline,

I was thinking the same thing, and then I read your post.  You said it all.  I remember watching that show occasionally when it was just in Japanese.  I called out to Jason "you gotta see this!"  Even without the translation, you could see how serious the chef's took the competion, and how fascinated the commentators were.  It was surreal.

Rachel

[Michelle Ng x]

I'm sure you all have very good motives and find Iron Chef fascinating for its culinary content, but you're totally atypical. You're like the people who read Penthouse for the articles, a small group within a larger group that reads it for the naked pictures.

[Liza x]

If we're here and discussing Iron Chef, then we're all atypical! A great big pat on the back to all.

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Liza

[Bux]

I tend to agree with Michelle that the Iron Chef show, is not for the serious gastronome. That some people develop an interest in food after watching it is much like the argument that wine coolers lead to serious interest in wine. Maybe it does and maybe they do, but so, what there's a more direct path.

I think Michelle's posts are a bit heavy on the racism aspect, which while it may be there, is probably not more than a side issue and in that aspect it'sreally the exoticism that draws most viewers. I have friends who were fascinated by the show and those who could barely watch it once. I probably watched it a good half dozen times before I didn't really care at all if it was on and at this point, it has outlived almost all entertainmnet value for me.  The dubbed-in English is a scream.  I have a bit of knowledge about Japan and its food and it took a while for me to stop wondering about fwahgra and realize it was foie gras and not a Japanese ingredient.  I am led to understand that the translators are clueless about many aspects of food and cooking and thus I have no choice but to assume this was exported as entertainment not education.

Nevertheless, the chefs who competed, both Japanese and Western were often serious and talented.  At the same time, Bobby Flay was not selected to represent the best of American chefdom, but for his capacity to entertain and draw an audience.

An American cooking show of dubious serious intellectual and educational quality will still draw top serious chefs if there's the  promise of a large audience.  It's often noted that there's no such thing as bad publicity and the great chefs of NY and France who own and run their own restaurants are also business men.  I can't get upset when they seem to prostitute themselves outside of their own kitchens.  When they start to pander to base tastes in their restaurants, I will complain.  As to whether the American show will be a success, I'll not venture a guess except to say that I predict it's success will be in reverse to how much I enjoy watching it.

[Bux]

Roger Lee - As for asian racial stereotypes, well let's face it, the Japanese are lovely people with a beautiful and unique culture, but a bit odd. Even other asians tend to feel that way about them. After all we are talking about a country that went from keeping all things foreign resolutely out for hundreds of years to adopting and adapting all things foreign in a historical blink of an eye, ...

I think you over simplify the Japanese people whose culture by American standards may be quite complex.  The Japanese side of Japanese culture has not so much adapted all things foreign as much as it coexists on another level with the international side of Japanese culture.  When an American grasps the sense of open and closed surrounding him in Japan, it's a much shorter jump to think in terms or parallel universes or science fiction that deals with additional dimensions, in my opinion.

[Liza]

Word is that UPN is only going to make 2 special Iron Chefs - not the dreaded series.

[B Edulis]

Liza, do you know where they're going to be filmed?

[Liza]

They already were taped - check out the unofficial Iron Chef website at www.ironchef.com. They've been following this very closely.

[BON]

The TV show, "The iron chef" was epoc making in Japan,

since before this show there were few who paid

attention to who was the chef. Their concern

was more on names of restaurants. So the chefs

who participated in the show had nothing to lose,

since they could gain publicity at least by exposing

themselves in mass media.Then the production side could

invited renowned chefs successully to the show.

The things are bit different in US, aren't they?

BTW does US version of "Iron chef" has an chef of Japanese

cuisine? Anybody knows?

[Liza]

From www.ironchef.com:

IC America: Todd English of Olives ("Captain America")

IC French: Jean Francois Meteigner of La Cachette ("The Battering Bon Vivant")

IC Italian: Alessandro Stratta of Renoir ("The Italian Scallion")*

IC Asian: Roy Yamaguchi of Roy's Restaurant ("The Samurai of Stir Fry")

[B Edulis]

I saw that Food Network is also going to show 52 never-before-dubbed episode starting in the fall. Not a moment too soon! I'm sure they all will do their best.

[BON]

Are the Iron Chefs-to-be famous in US or in NY?

[Bux]

In my estimation, a couple are well known in NY. To say they are famous in NY may be a stretch. None are NY chefs, although one is from Boston and also operates a new restaurant here in NY. I don't believe even the most respected and best known of the lot has a reputation equal to the top half dozen chefs in the US, but of course all of this is subjective.