Battle of the Iron Chefs

by Phoebe de la Cruz

description
research

A couple of months ago, I found myself sitting at home alone on a
Saturday night. Robert was still at work. For once, I was caught up with
most of my homework and all of my housework. It was a miracle. I didn't feel
like reading or cooking, so I turned on the TV. Like many young couples
today, Rob and I choose not to spend the $40 per month on cable TV. I
flipped through the fourteen channels we get from our rabbit-ears antenna
for at least fifteen minutes. Cheesy teledrama movie of the week? I don't
think so. Overhyped Saturday Night Thrillogy? No, thank you. Instead, I
happened stopped at channel 26 just long enough to get a glimpse of a
strange Japanese cooking show.

A female voice seemed to be counting down in Japanese as chefs and
their assistants, in what appeared to some kind of kitchen stadium, rushed
about in a frenzy. I didn't recognize the food. Suddenly, they cut to a
commercial. After the commercial break, which was full of delightfully weird
Japanese ads, I watched the judging session of the cooking show. After
another commercial break, a winner was declared in a most dramatic fashion.

I had been mesmerized. When Rob got home, I told him about this
American Gladiators-style Japanese cooking show. He suggested that I try to
watch it again next Saturday. When next Saturday came, at approximately
8:00, Robert and I turned our television to channel 26 and waited patiently.

The opening scenes were similar to those for the various televised
sporting events, such as the Olympics. We are shown where the "challenging"
chef has studied, his strengths, the restaurants for which he has worked in
a way similar to how sports networks show background footage of an athlete
when he is about to begin an important competition. Finally, the emcee
welcomes the challenger to the stage. The three "Iron Chefs" are presented
to the challenger from what appear to be balconies. Each chef is clothed in
colors representative of his culinary style; for example, the Iron Chef of
Chinese cuisine is in red, the Iron Chef of Italian cuisine wears red, white
and green. The challenger looks up to the Iron Chefs and chooses the one
with whom he'd like to compete.

Once the match-up has been decided, the emcee announces the battle.
He reveals the ingredient that the two chefs must incorporate as a theme
into each of their dishes. Tonight, it is strawberries. The cameras focus on
the two chefs' reactions: a semi-smile from one, a sigh from the other.
Battle Strawberry begins.

The chefs and their assistants have an hour to prepare their dishes
although the time seems to move much faster. All of the cooking is filmed
with hand-held cameras, and every once in a while, you can even catch a
cameraman in his colleague's shot. As soon as the cooking begins, there is
ongoing commentary from six people. The first, and most noticeable
commentator is Kaga, the man about the Kitchen Stadium. If there is news to
be reported ("The Iron Chef is upset with the results of a dish and says he
will start all over again"), Kaga informs all of us on the spot. Even though
Robert and I don't speak or understand Japanese, the speed at which this man
talks seems to be outrageously fast. He keeps us on our feet as he
constantly interrupts the rest of the commentary, which comes from a
well-known chef and cooking school owner and the four judges who watch the
action from TV monitors. Of the four judges, only one is a true food critic.
The rest are generally actors and musicians. Usually, they simply coo their
oohs and ahhhs, remarking on how good something looks or their wonder at
whether the Iron Chef will be able to finish a dish if he has to start all
over again.

The female voice marks each fifteen-minute interval and the
beginning of the last five minutes. She also counts down the last ten
seconds of the cook-off. You feel like you are watching the final seconds of
a close basketball game. A gong signals the end of the Battle. Each chef has
made anywhere from four to eight dishes. After the next commercial break,
the judging begins.

First, we get a close-up of each dish with a nice description from
an overhead announcer. Then we watch the judges eat. The emcee sits at the
head of a long table; the four judges are on one side of the table, facing
the camera. The challenger presents his dishes first. Afterward, the Iron
Chef takes his turn to present his dishes, saving the best for last, which
he normally serves himself. The judges taste everything and give their
remarks on each presentation. Now and then, one even gets to hear a poetic
or even a surprising remark about the food, such as "This soup makes me glad
I'm alive."

Finally, the results are announced. The emcee is in the middle of
the Kitchen Stadium and the four judges file out behind him. He comments on
the difficulty of the theme, thanks the chefs for their efforts, and pauses
dramatically as the equivalent of a drumroll plays in the background.
Suddenly, the emcee climactically trumpets the name of the winner. The
scores from each judge quickly appear in a graphic. (Each chef is ranked on
a scale of 20 points. The winner is the chef who is most favored by the
judges.) The camera zooms to the winning chef's joyful face, in this case,
the Iron Chef. The chefs bow to each other and the battle is finished.

What makes this show so exciting is its energy. As my aunt (who is
in the Air Force and was stationed in Japan for several years) puts it, "The
Japanese take their cooking seriously." The food, although often strange and
foreign, is always presented elegantly. On what other show can you watch
culinary artists prepare masterpieces from themes like honey, frog fish,
European rabbit, or milk? I watched this show every Saturday night for at
least four months, with Rob if he happened to be off work. One Saturday
night, without warning, the show had no subtitles. We were totally lost.
Maybe it's just this week, I thought. I thought wrong. At one point, while
trying to concentrate on the show, I even vowed to take Japanese just so I
could understand it without the aid of subtitles. The removal of the
subtitles took away so much, in terms of the emotion and salivation
generated by knowing what is what.

On a whim, I searched for Iron Chef on the internet and found a
wonderful site in http://www.ironchef.com, which described the entire
controversy behind the subtitles and even demystified some of the
behind-the-scenes work about which we wondered. I was somewhat angered to
learn that the current lack of subtitles boils down to money: The producers
of the show have turned the presence of subtitles into a copyright issue and
are only willing to charge an arm and a leg to provide copyrighted shows to
the stateside channels, a price too high for the stateside distributors.

Although I haven't really watched for some time, I am counting down to the
day I can watch "Iron Chef" and understand once more. I am waiting for the
day when I can make a shameless invitation to others to watch the most
exciting cooking show ever and know that they can at least comprehend that
which they may not initially understand.

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Questions? Brian McKinney (bmckinne@home.com)