Iron Chef America





Back in 2001 UPN tried to turn the cult Japanese cooking show Iron Chef into an English language show by camping it up and dumbing it down. William Shatner played The Chairman on Iron Chef USA, and ratings were so low that scientists and philosophers are still debating whether or not the second episode actually aired.

This weekend Food Network aired their own American Iron Chef show, with the catchy title Iron Chef America. Actually four hour-long specials and a making-of, I’ve watched most of the middle two episodes. Iron Chef America is a much more literal translation of the show, if anything a little more serious than the Japanese version. Instead of the flamboyant Chairman Kaga we get the more dapper “Kaga’s nephew.” Kaga’s nephew is played by B-list martial arts star Mark Dacascos, star of such movies as Drive (1996) and Cradle 2 The Grave (2003) The only reason I can think they hired him is that his frequent work with French director Christophe Gans means that Mark could pronounce “Allez Cuisine” without too much coaching. The role of commentator is ably filled by Good Eats host Alton Brown.

I’m not really that interested in cooking as an activity for myself, and the drama on the show is strictly manufactured (more on that in a bit), so I guess I watch Iron Chef for the educational experience. On the Japanese show the lesson I learned most often is that the Japanese will eat any part of any plant or animal that lives in the sea, especially when mixed with ice cream. The American show may be less exotic, but Alton is fun to listen to and I have learned a lot. I especially enjoyed finding out that you have to use a hacksaw to open ostrich eggs and there was a neat bit where a souse chef was making filaments of sugar out of hot syrup.

The results of Iron Chef can be as fixed as any match featuring The Rock, so I suppose it isn’t much of a surprise that in all the results I’ve seen the American chefs beat the chefs from the Japanese show. The point of this exercise is to “pass the torch” to the American chefs. (The Japanese show did the same thing of course, when Morimoto became the “new” Iron Chef Japanese.) But I’m not sure I’m going to believe it’s really Iron Chef America until the Chairman reveals that the secret ingredient for that night’s battle is hotdogs or White Castle slyders.

Posted: Tue - April 27, 2004 at      

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