I would never have learned to cook if it weren’t for the TV show, “Chopped.” This long-running reality show on the Food Network pits against each other four successful chefs, who race to cook three-course meals, using baskets of “mystery ingredients” that often have weird tastes or are sometimes just flat-out bizarre. The chefs can also choose additional ingredients for their dishes from an available pantry, but they must use all the mystery ingredients in some fashion.
After each course, one of the chefs is eliminated by a panel of expert judges, until finally the winner gets a cash prize. And bragging rights of course. Occasionally, producers will mix it up, like using whiz kid chefs, or grannies with amazing skills and even celebrities. But, generally, the chefs are seasoned professionals.
And the mystery ingredients for them always include stuff that’s darn weird to most of us, like 100-year-old eggs from China, which for your edification aren’t really that old, but they are stinky and rotten. Other possibilities in that little basket, according to Mashed.com, could include fried rattlesnake, Rocky Mountain oysters, aka bull testicles, durian — a fruit popular in Southeast Asia which is known for its terrible aroma, balut — a partly developed duck embryo inside a shell, chicken feet, complete with tiny toenails, reindeer pate and a goat head (fortunately, already skinned.)
The competitors are expected to repurpose the mystery ingredients. So if they get fiddlehead ferns, they can’t just cook them as is. That’s almost considered cheating. They have to make fiddlehead fern ice cream or grind them into a veggie pate. Occasionally, you’ll see a contestant just take a Hawaiian sweet roll and heat it up to serve and you can’t help shaking your head with disbelief, knowing this poor sod is about to get his head ripped off by the judges, who aren’t always kind.
The reason this show helped me learn to cook is that you actually watch the process occur, with the chefs going to the pantry against the clock to look for sugar, for example, and not finding any. So they grab maple syrup instead — because it’s also sweet — to prepare the dish they just invented on the spot. Or maybe they realize their dish is too sweet, so they grab something sour or salty to balance it out.
Rachel Klemek of Blackmarket bakeries in Costa Mesa and Santa Ana will compete on the ‘Sweets Showdown’ grand finale of Food Network’s “Chopped.” (Courtesy of Food Network)
Watching this show taught me how to use flavors in dishes, and also how to use what I already have in my kitchen, rather than running to the store.
And, as TV, it’s a heck of a lot more exciting than just watching your average cooking show. You find yourself sighing in disgust when you see someone make a rookie error, like putting raw onions in a salad, because some judges hate raw onions. Or grabbing the “truffle oil” and adding it at the last minute, which is a legendary mistake that always backfires. I have no idea what truffle oil tastes like, but I guarantee you that if I’m ever on “Chopped,” I definitely won’t use any. It always sends the judges into a froth.
There are student cooking competitions around the country that also use the mystery basket format. I covered one at Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa, which has a well-known culinary arts program. The students were competing against an out-of-town school, and the judge was a tall, refined Austrian gentleman who was the executive chef at one of the fancy schmancy hotels nearby.
It was fun to watch, and the home team won. I’d gone to write a feature about the event for the paper even though I had a bad cold that day. After the win, I sat down with the elegant-but-not-snooty chef from Austria, who was wearing a tall white chef’s hat and a number of decorations I didn’t recognize, but I assumed meant that he was a muckety-muck of some high standing in the culinary world. We sat across from each other at a table with a linen tablecloth and I started asking him questions, notebook in hand.
I popped a cough drop into my mouth, to keep from hacking away. But, at one point, I still had a fit of coughing and the cough drop flew out of my mouth and landed on the tablecloth in front of us. We both just looked silently at the cough drop lying there. My face started turning red. We looked at each other, then we looked at the cough drop. Twice. Finally, I just grabbed the cough drop, popped it back in my mouth, told him, “You didn’t see that,” and kept on with the interview. It was never mentioned again.
FYI: “Chopped” airs Tuesday nights on the Food Network and also streams on Max, Discovery+ and Food Network Go.
Related links
Frumpy Mom: Who does the dishes in your house? Watching House Hunters on HGTV makes me scream Any excuse not to cook Frumpy Mom: Strangers helped me in my time of need Marla Jo Fisher: I must like you, my house is a mess Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( Frumpy Mom: What I learned from watching the TV show ‘Chopped’ )
Also on site :