Iron Chef America (Part 1)

[Mnehrling]

I just dont know if its correct to say that Steingarten isnt knowledgeable about food.. Infact,  I know he has written things about catfish,  down to how their taste buds form.   And I believe his comment about the catfish being muddy was in reference to a carpacio dish.  I think this gave me a very clear picture of how raw catfish might taste.

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Actually - all non-farmed catfish taste muddy (which makes sense - since catfish are bottom-feeding scavengers that live in the mud). And - like I've said here in the past - it is very much an acquired taste (which most people never acquire - yours truly included). So perhaps the fault is not with the judges - but with the people who chose this as the "secret ingredient" (if they were going to use catfish - they should have used farm raised - it has a delicate flavor and can be used successfully in a ton of dishes - like any white fish with a delicate flavor).

Doesn't anyone know who the woman sitting between Zagat and Steingarten was (no answer to my previous question yet)? Robyn

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This reminded me of something I saw on Discovery Health a while back. It is very very dangerous to eat any bottom feeding freshwater fish raw as it has a microbe called a Liver Fluke that will distroy your liver faster than Teddy Kennedy's drinking.

[Jinmyo]

On top of that he made such a big deal about it having 10 ingredients. Was that supposed to impress? Step into teh world of fine dining and see how many ingredients are in something. Just because theres alot of things in it doesn't mean it tasted good. If he made those same grits and just finished it with some nice duck confit and foie butter it woudl have been perfect.

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Are you kidding me? You obviously have no clue about Southern cooking.

Foie gras and duck confit in Southern cooking? Give me a fucking break.

If you have time during that break perhaps you could please discuss the ingredients that Flay actually did use and what you think of their relevance to Southern Cooking? Thanks.

[Bux]

On top of that he made such a big deal about it having 10 ingredients. Was that supposed to impress? Step into teh world of fine dining and see how many ingredients are in something. Just because theres alot of things in it doesn't mean it tasted good. If he made those same grits and just finished it with some nice duck confit and foie butter it woudl have been perfect.

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Are you kidding me? You obviously have no clue about Southern cooking.

Foie gras and duck confit in Southern cooking? Give me a fucking break.

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Here's a clue. There are five points to be gained for originality, and no points for authenticity.

[jogoode]

Doesn't anyone know who the woman sitting between Zagat and Steingarten was (no answer to my previous question yet)?  Robyn

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Hi Robyn,

I can't keep track of who was in which episode, but the women I've seen thus far are Julie Chen, a host of the CBS morning show; the president of the Asia Society (most recent episode); Nina Zagat; the president of KB Network News, a PR firm; and Victoria Von Biel, executive editor of Bon Appetit.

[chopjwu12]

this is for stephenc

Let me fist thank bux for coming to my aid on this one.

Second are you joking. Please dont tell me i dont know anything about a cuisine because really you have no idea who i am an dwhat i know. Obviously your showing your Sillyness here because if your an iron chef you better dam well know how to use foie gras and duck confit.

oh yeah for some reason i dont remember yuzu juice and coconuts being grown in the deep south either. But he used those now didn't he? Think before you post please.

Edited February 1, 2005 by chopjwu12 (log)

[stephenc]

Again, duck confit and fois gras in a Southern-style grits dish?

Please, I know we have some elitist foodies here, but please............

[stephenc]

On top of that he made such a big deal about it having 10 ingredients. Was that supposed to impress? Step into teh world of fine dining and see how many ingredients are in something. Just because theres alot of things in it doesn't mean it tasted good. If he made those same grits and just finished it with some nice duck confit and foie butter it woudl have been perfect.

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Are you kidding me? You obviously have no clue about Southern cooking.

Foie gras and duck confit in Southern cooking? Give me a fucking break.

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Here's a clue. There are five points to be gained for originality, and no points for authenticity.

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Right, throw fois gras, duck confit, caviar, or whatever expensive french ingredient you have around into the dish and you automatically have a WINNER!

[chopjwu12]

On top of that he made such a big deal about it having 10 ingredients. Was that supposed to impress? Step into teh world of fine dining and see how many ingredients are in something. Just because theres alot of things in it doesn't mean it tasted good. If he made those same grits and just finished it with some nice duck confit and foie butter it woudl have been perfect.

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Are you kidding me? You obviously have no clue about Southern cooking.

Foie gras and duck confit in Southern cooking? Give me a fucking break.

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Here's a clue. There are five points to be gained for originality, and no points for authenticity.

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Right, throw fois gras, duck confit, caviar, or whatever expensive french ingredient you have around into the dish and you automatically have a WINNER!

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Can anyone tell me what flays signiture dish at mesa is??????????????

I belive its a duck confit and blue corn tamale. Boy that duck confit sure doesn't belong in the south.

I say once again please think before you post.

[bpearis]

Again, duck confit and fois gras in a Southern-style grits dish?

Please, I know we have some elitist foodies here, but please............

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The show is Iron Chef, not Authenticity Chef. Those grits did seem a bit busy, though.

[NulloModo]

Again, duck confit and fois gras in a Southern-style grits dish?

Please, I know we have some elitist foodies here, but please............

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Actually, I'd view the elitist as being the one who says that Fois Gras and Confit have no place in grits. Ingredients are made to be combined, as long as it tastes good, who cares if it is traditional or how the ingredient would normally be used?

Grits have a history and a cultural identity I'm sure, but you can also throw all of that out and just use them for taste and texture, so that they become just like any other ingredient. Let's give this authenticity and knowing a food's roots business a break. As long as something tastes good, I don't care if it has 1 ingredient, or 100. The ingredients can come from my neighbors garden, or they can be flown in from all corners of the world. It can all be grown organically or it can come from a hot-house in minnessota. What matters is what happens when the dish hits the tongue, as long as it makes me smile, its a winner.

[Shalmanese]

If you would allow me to get on my soapbox and pontificate a bit:

[soapbox]

Americans simply can't talk about food. Sure, the company on egullet is the exception that proves the rule but I think IC has clearly demonstrated that, possibly apart from Steingarten who is paid to talk about food, even people with significant culinary experience just plain don't know how to talk about food. In America, food is either "delicious" or "not very good", maybe if it really is exceptional, food might be "very delicious". It is essentially rated on a one dimensional scale.

Now why I think this is is because Americans view eating and tasting food as an ultimately innate skill. While it might take many years and lots of effort to be able to make great food, tasting food is a skill that everyone possesses. It's a purely sensory reaction to how you feel when the food has entered your mouth.

On the other hand, the Japanese mentality seems to view such things more as an artform, an intellectualised activity. Like tea ceremonies or flower arranging, what was once something done for pleasure has now been turned into an artform. It promotes a more introspective, analysing look to food. While the Japanese tasters might be no more qualified than the American ones, they knew that there was something beyond purely personal taste to food and tried to elucidate that (often rather hilariously when they made some utterly boneheaded comment and you could see the chef struggling with all his might not to let off a tirade of abuse. In fact, I would have to say that it was my favourite part of the show.)

I'm not saying that one is neccesarily better than the other but I think the Japanese approach definately makes for better TV. It's as if two people were looking at a Picasso painting and one said "It looks depressing, it makes me feel sad" while the other said "I think his use of lines was interesting, they bring out the dynamic nature of the scene and really propels user into the picture". Of course, I know barely anything about art criticism so for all I know, both statements are equally bullshit, but the second is more interesting to the viewer.

But I still think it's very sad that even some of the most powerful people in the food industry can't even speak coherently about balance, proper seasoning, brightness or anything else descriptive about food.

[/soapbox]

After watching the first few episodes, I think it definately has potential. I love the witty banter between the floor and the stand, it brings a lot more intimacy and familiarty which was missing in the original. I also think plating in ICA has been a cut above ICJ. While there have been some truely ghastly plates put out *cough* flay's jackson pollock in sauce *cough*, it seems to play a more central role this time around.

There are some fairly major issues but I think many of them can be optimistically be attributed to teething troubles and might work themselves out once they get their stride.

Please let's have an intro on the challenger, 2 - 3 minutes isn't much to ask. Instead, you can cut out the pointless explaination of the scoring and trim the overly long intro segment.

The colour commentator, I think many people have been too fixated on the Hattori/Fukui dynamic and have wanted to emulate that over here. I actually think Alton/Bourdain would work great as a team. With no disrespect to bourdain, but it seems as if his culinary education was deep but not wide. He knows and cooks what he loves to eat but he doesn't venture much out of those boundarys, Sure he might have eaten a lot on A Cooks Tour but he didn't seem to really go behind the scenes. On the other hand, he seems to deeply respect chefs and the cooking process. He provides the grizzled restaurant veteran commentary to Altons encyclopedic book knowledge. Talking more about the chefs, techniques, dynamics rather than the food. In short, providing us with a glimpse of how restuarant cooking is fundamentally different from home cooking.

The editing seems to be a huge mess, theres no real sense of coherency to any of the dishes until about the 20 minute left mark when, wham, it all seems to come together. I don't really feel like watching 20 minutes of chefs prepping onions when I have no idea what they are going into. Show us some of the unique preperations and get the commentators to guess how it's all going to come together. Of course, you need 3 - 4 commentators to pull this off.

[jogoode]

But I still think it's very sad that even some of the most powerful people in the food industry can't even speak coherently about balance, proper seasoning, brightness or anything else descriptive about food.

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To whom are you referring here? The president of the Asia Society? The senior editor at Zagat? Julie Chen?

Though I think your intent is to provoke, it's absurd to say that Americans can't talk about food. It's offensive, in fact, to this food writer -- young though I may be. Perhaps you mispoke or overlooked the real issue: Most of Food Network's audience doesn't want to hear much more from the judges than "Delicious" or "Overcooked". Most substantial comments are either edited out or killed before they begin by the show's producers. ("OK, keep your comments short, Jeffrey. We don't want you to recount the origins of masa in response to Bobby's tamale.")

[Shalmanese]

I was referring to the Zagat lady primarily as I have not seen the 3rd episode yet but the first two both struck me with the shallowness of the comments.

As with all generalisations, there are ample exceptions to the rule, which I did point out. But I am saying that America as a culture is not one that is used to intellectulalizing and analysing food in a deep manner. Food is judged on a personal and sensorary level. Because of this, it's not very conducive to TV presentation. Again, I stress that this is not a bad thing.

[jogoode]

All right, I settled down. Silly to be offended by your post.

Shalmanese, I assume by your post that you speak Japanese and have watched the show without English dubbing. Can you tell us anything more specific about the difference between the Japanese judges' descriptions of the food and those of the American judges?

[jayt90]

Not to disparage or discredit any of the competitiors, but does anyone else notice the finger licking and spoon tasting (with the spoon going back into the food), and the lack of gloved hands on ready to eat food?  I know the competition is about other things (marketing, mainly), ...

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They do this just to make 'foodies' cringe.

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You guys are all kidding, right? I mean latex gloves in the kitchen? I'm sure other chefs could weigh in here about the likelyhood of wearing gloves in the kitchen in real life, let alone a tv show....

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I think Julia Child set the standard for cleanliness habits in front of the camera: she always used " my impeccably clean spoon" for each taste, and set it aside after the taste. If I remember, Julia only used a clean-up cloth, or napkin once, as well. If her hands mixed something, we were usually assured it was OK.

The IC competitors could do as well.

[Gul_Dekar]

I found the episode with Ming Tsai most interesting so far. The judges seemed more sensible in their comments & Jeffrey Steingarten was awfully quiet in this one.

[jogoode]

As with all generalisations, there are ample exceptions to the rule, which I did point out. But I am saying that America as a culture is not one that is used to intellectulalizing and analysing food in a deep manner.

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Can't disagree with you here!

[Shalmanese]

No, I don't personally speak japanese and I've certainly never seen the japanese show nor know where to obtain it but I do know several Japanese people and have spent quite a bit of time discussing such cultural differences with them.

The main theme that I have picked up is that Americans seem to value personal preference and opinion more while the Japanese feel that there are objective standards to judge and experts who dispense wisdom from on high based on soundly reasoned principles.

If you listen to the english translations of ICJ, you hear a lot about balance, enhancing the natural flavour, contrasting texture, subtlety etc. This is the search for why a food tastes good rather than just how good it tastes to you at that moment. Even though the guests were admittedly not food experts, they all seemed to understand that food follows a certain set of protocols designed to fulfil a certain set of goals and that tasting food was akin to appreciating art in that the pleasure is derived from discovering and uncovering these principles in the food.

I also have noticed that it was very rare in ICJ for a taster to object to a particular presentation on personal grounds. I'm not sure if it's from carefully vetting of the guests or the japanese willing to be more adventerous, but I'm also willing to bet that a lot of the tasters, while personally not appreciating a dish, were still perfectly capable of elucidating objectively why such a dish might appeal to people.

[chefzadi]

Not to disparage or discredit any of the competitiors, but does anyone else notice the finger licking and spoon tasting (with the spoon going back into the food), and the lack of gloved hands on ready to eat food?  I know the competition is about other things (marketing, mainly), ...

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They do this just to make 'foodies' cringe.

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You guys are all kidding, right? I mean latex gloves in the kitchen? I'm sure other chefs could weigh in here about the likelyhood of wearing gloves in the kitchen in real life, let alone a tv show....

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I think Julia Child set the standard for cleanliness habits in front of the camera: she always used " my impeccably clean spoon" for each taste, and set it aside after the taste. If I remember, Julia only used a clean-up cloth, or napkin once, as well. If her hands mixed something, we were usually assured it was OK.

The IC competitors could do as well.

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Did Julia ever work in a commercial kitchen? Was she under the time constraints of a competition? I'm certainly not defending bad hygiene in the kitchen. But the context is wildly different.

Edited February 1, 2005 by chefzadi (log)

[chopjwu12]

No, I don't personally speak japanese and I've certainly never seen the japanese show nor know where to obtain it but I do know several Japanese people and have spent quite a bit of time discussing such cultural differences with them.

The main theme that I have picked up is that Americans seem to value personal preference and opinion more while the Japanese feel that there are objective standards to judge and experts who dispense wisdom from on high based on soundly reasoned principles.

If you listen to the english translations of ICJ, you hear a lot about balance, enhancing the natural flavour, contrasting texture, subtlety etc. This is the search for why a food tastes good rather than just how good it tastes to you at that moment. Even though the guests were admittedly not food experts, they all seemed to understand that food follows a certain set of protocols designed to fulfil a certain set of goals and that tasting food was akin to appreciating art in that the pleasure is derived from discovering and uncovering these principles in the food.

I also have noticed that it was very rare in ICJ for a taster to object to a particular presentation on personal grounds. I'm not sure if it's from carefully vetting of the guests or the japanese willing to be more adventerous, but I'm also willing to bet that a lot of the tasters, while personally not appreciating a dish, were still perfectly capable of elucidating objectively why such a dish might appeal to people.

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What she is saying is true. Ofcourse there are exception there always are. But i was trying to say something like this in a previous post on page 5or6. The japanese take eating nuch more seriously then the average america. As far as commeents go even if you listen to the original iron chef with th edubbing, there are comments that ae much more detailed. Things like talking about the balance or reactions in th mouth. I mean im sure if we were able to understand japaneses they would be even more detailed.

[Bux]

Again, duck confit and fois gras in a Southern-style grits dish?

Please, I know we have some elitist foodies here, but please............

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The show is Iron Chef, not Authenticity Chef. Those grits did seem a bit busy, though.

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As I recall, those were "ten ingredient" grits. The reference was made to the way many Chinese dishes are named and Flay counldn't have been more specific about his intent to cross cultural boundaries and adapt a concept perhaps from fried rice. To say it's not southern food is to miss the whole point of what Flay was doing and perhaps what the show, which seems to promote fusion and creative cooking, is all about. This is not a heritage cooking show. To dwell on authentic regional traditions may be like walking around the Museum of Modern Art decrying the absence of perspective in abstrace expressionism.

[Bux]

Stereotypical statements about any group, particularly a national group stereotype made by a member of another nation, are bound to offend and examples, even of only token opposition will always be found to prove anyone wrong. This show is heavily edited, or at least appears that way. I'm sure Jeffrey could expound on the food for another hour and many of us would find most of it well worth hearing, but the producers weren't looking for a bunch of Steingartens. Judges seem to be picked for their titles and positions, always with an eye to having one or more who have experience before the camera. It's not that we don't have articulate experts who can talk about food, it's that they weren't the focus of the selection committee because they'd already decided their audience isn't interested in hearing very much that's serious and insightful about the food on the show. It's not that we don't have experts, it's that no one wants to listen to them perhaps. There's a large audience in American with nothing but disdain for expertise. We're a nation of people with great faith in our own opinion. "I don't know much about art, but I know what I like," is a strong recurrent philosophy. Instructional TV is bound to find fewer viewers than one that reinforces the sense that no one knows more than the viewer. Then again, as an American I see this as an American trait because I deal with Americans all the time. When I travel abroad, I seem to run into the same attitude. It's probably a human failing, not an American one specifically.

I know a chef who's worked in a Michelin three star restaurant and a NY Times four star restaurant. He's a fanatic about health related conditions in the kitchen. Chefs at this level are well aware of what a single incident of food poisoning or other health related incident could do to business. The interesting thing is that his concerns don't necessarily match those expressed here. Cross contamination, for instance, is prevented by wearing gloves. Washing your hands is probably far more important, but basically you have to be careful and keep track of what you've touched last.

[Bux]

I think Julia Child set the standard for cleanliness habits in front of the camera: she always used " my impeccably clean spoon"  for each taste, and set it aside after the taste. If I remember, Julia only used a clean-up cloth, or napkin once, as well. If her hands mixed something, we were usually assured it was OK.

The IC competitors could do as well.

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Julia, as I recall, picked food up off the floor and assured us the guests would never know.

[chefzadi]

I'd like to see more, if any chefs like Bux's friend on Iron Chef. The audience would see great economy of movement, a clean, well maintained station throughout, spotless Chef's whites at the end of the show, and hand washing (if they don't edit it out) to prevent cross contamination. I can't promise no fingers or double dipped spoons though.

I know it's a show, but there's a lot of jerky movements. Maybe it adds to the excitement. But given that they know the ingredients, exactly what the order is and they have assistants... Well, it doesn't even begin to compare to cooking under fire or getting into the weeds in a real restaurant setting.

It's all in the Mise en Place.

I also want to add that as far as the Food TV roster of chefs goes. I'd like to see Tsai, Morimoto, Emeril and Wolfgand Puck (Frozen pizza aside, the man is definately skilled). If they add an Iron Pastry Chef, Jaques Torres for sure.

[NulloModo]

If they add an Iron Pastry Chef, Jaques Torres for sure.

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Have you heard rumors of this? Apparently there is a pastry guy who also posts on eGullet who is going to be a challenger on one of the battles, but this in and of itself sounds bizarre to me. While it would be interesting to see some baking going on during one of the battles (no one ever seems to bake their own breads or etc for any of their dishes, it could be pulled off if it was timed just right), I can't imagine the need for an Iron Chef Pastry. The current Iron Chefs are more than competent at desserts, and can incorporate them into a full meal. A complete dessert battle, or even a series of them, would simply be dull and tedious.