Iron Chef America Meets Survivor

By JULIETTE ROSSANT I tender these thoughts to the Food Network to see whether they agree that Iron Chef America could be kicked up several notches (as Emeril Lagasse might say). Now that I have sat in the audience (see previous article) as well, I feel better able to make these comments -- though I still would like to be a judge. Despite the buzz around Reality TV, it seems the obvious has been overlooked in top Food Reality TV. Lots of talk continues about the ongoing success of CBS's Survivor, yet few seem to have transferred its successful to different subjects. I think Survivor is quite directly applicable to Iron Chef America. Iron Chef Survivor Most chefs talk to the Media at one point about heading out into the marketplace to find the freshest ingredients -- so, fly chefs around the country to cities outside home base (where they have no restaurants themselves, thus no everyday experience) and set them not just to cook but first to shop. Food Network executives will reflexively balk at this idea at first because it involves travel during production, and that means a show is no longer a cheap, in-house, "dump-and-stir" production (that's an industry term, that is). But costs need not skyrocket: start peppy and cheap with shoots in cities and towns near New York -- Philadelphia, New Haven, Poughkeepsie (that will bring the CIA running), Hartford, Allentown... Get into smaller American cities -- and get Americans excited about Iron Chef Survivor coming to their cities. The point is, get those chefs into hunter-gatherer mode -- and then set them to cooking. How does this play out? You send a crew with the two chefs and their teams out to one of these cities. You give them a few hours to shop, providing each with yellow pages (there's a sponsor!) and address of the local information center and chamber of commerce (more sponsors!). They get three hours to shop. There is no secret ingredient because this is harder than that: they don't know what they will find! Send them out for lunch or dinner, so a few moments to highlight local restaurants and chef (in-kind contribution from local restaurants). You overnight them somewhere (nothing too fancy -- but not too cheap), and next morning, early, you stick them into some local cooking facility -- again, they cook with whatever is on hand in terms of kitchen. They have one hour to turn their findings into something delicious. Don't forget some humor. Half of the top chefs in the country have their own food product lines now, right? Well, have some fun with that. When Anito Lo goes for a rematch with Mario Batali, point Anita in the direction of a Trader Joe's and let her walk into an aisle that is lined up and down with Mario Batali sauces. It's a Candid Camera moment -- should be fun to see her reaction! Or, let Bobby Flay take on buddy Ming Tsai again -- and have Ming use all of Bobby's sauces, while Bobby has to cook with all of Ming's. How about a Halloween special, when all the iron chefs cook against each other -- and have to choose from among the others' food products -- dread, mon, really dread! Cooking Under Camera A-ha!, the TV-observant reader interjects: much of this concept ran last night on last night's episode of Cooking Under Fire. True -- but I wrote most this article two days ago and before I had the faintest inkling about that episode's content. A-ha! but it did not save Cooking Under Fire last night! True again -- I'm already on record as disappointed by that show's self-consciousness, or what I called Cooking Under Camera (see prevous article. Besides, the shopping run did not work on Cooking Under Fire because the show does not work. American Idol does not translate over into Food. Watching ordinary, amateur people stand up in front of a national TV audience and make jackasses of themselves touches all of us, since almost everyone is afraid of standing up in front of an audience. Watching line cooks (can I say "amateur chefs" here, to keep the flow?) perform in front of a national audience is not as exciting: it's just cooking. Iron Chef America pits great chefs against each other -- and injects more excitement into food preparation. Beside the hustle and bustle that keeps all Americans, no matter how attention-deficit, somehow glued to the tube, the only thing about Iron Chef America that appeals to me is the modicum of education involved. I like the side comments about the ingredients and how they are used: I love Alton Brown. Don't get me wrong: I love those folk over at PBS and WGBH. They just need to stick to their guns. Frontline -- there just isn't any television better than that. Serve me up something by Ken Burns any time. And let us not forget Julia Child or Jacques Pepin. The "girl thing" and the ethnic flavors with chefs like Anita, Alex Lee, and Roberto Trevino you've been adding are good and will prop up Iron Chef America's ratings to keep it going a season or two longer. So, Food Network, do you like these ideas, you are welcome to respect my thoughts (is this still my own intellectual property if I publish my thoughts like this?)? You are welcome to bring me on board to ramp this show up. I'm looking 1-2 season out: I'm talking about Iron Chef Survivor -- funkier and more furious. Previous articles: In the Audience of Iron Chef America Today Show Emulates Iron Chef America Cat Cora Wins on Iron Chef America Anita Lo Defeats Mario Batali on Iron Chef America Cat Cora, Anita Lo: Sexing Up Iron Chef America Iron Chef Pizza Wars: Batali vs. Puck Bobby Flay: Married and Motivated Ming Tsai TV Cat Cora: Iron Chef America's First Lady Roberto Trevino: Viva Aguaviva Nancy Silverton and Mario Batali's Mozza Iron Chef America: Running on Empty World AIDS Day II: Iron Chef Cat Cora More Reality TV Chefs (Or Less)? Real TV Cooking? Kitchen Confidential a la Sex and the City Molto Mario Massacres Mahi Todd English: American Chef Gone Wild Iron Chef: America vs. USA Tags: reality TV --> back to superchefblog