Iron Chef America

Iron Chef America is an American cooking show based on FujiTV's Iron Chef, and is the second American adaptation of the series, following the failed Iron Chef USA. The show is produced by Food Network, which also carries a dubbed version of the original Iron Chef.

Format

At the beginning of the show, after the challenger chef is introduced, the Chairman would announce their Iron Chef opponent, unlike Iron Chef or Iron Chef USA, where chefs supposedly had the freedom to choose their opponent. (In reality, in all three incarnations the matchups are determined well in advance.) Afterwards, a theme ingredient is revealed, and the cooking begins.

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Unlike Iron Chef, where chefs had upwards of 5 minutes to discuss their strategy before the battle begins, the revealing of the theme ingredient is immediately followed by the start of the battle, typically announced by Chairman Dacascos in the following manner:

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: So America, with an open heart and an empty stomach, I say unto you in the words of my uncle: Allez Cuisine!

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Although this is drawn out compared to Iron Chef and Iron Chef USA, the cooking begins earlier in the program compared to the two: both Iron Chef and Iron Chef USA used the first five minutes of the program to give background information on the challenger, and another five for formalities that are not present on Iron Chef America (such as the symbolic rise of the Iron Chefs in front of their portraits). In the case of Iron Chef USA, the theme was not revealed until 20 minutes into the program.

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On Iron Chef America, both the challenger and the Iron Chef have 60 minutes to prepare dishes based on a theme ingredient (which, like Iron Chef USA, is referred to as the secret ingredient). The dishes are tasted by a panel of three judges, of which two are professional food critics (a contrast to the original Iron Chef, which typically had one professional food critic as a judge, and Iron Chef USA, where none of the judges were professional food critics). Like the original Iron Chef, each chef can be awarded up to 20 points by each judge, and the chef with the higher amount of points (and not necessarily the plurality of judges, as with Iron Chef) is declared the winner. When a battle finishes in a tie it remains as the final result, unlike Iron Chef, where an overtime battle was immediately called with a new theme ingredient.

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Unlike Iron Chef, Iron Chef America requires both chefs to prepare a minimum of five dishes, as did Iron Chef USA. Iron Chef America is also not affiliated with any culinary institution as Iron Chef was with Hattori Nutrition College, so chefs also bring in their own assistants, often themselves extraordinary chefs in their own right. Like Iron Chef and Iron Chef USA, each chef is allowed two assistants. In tag-team battles, the two chefs on each side each bring in one assistant (so there are four people working in a kitchen as opposed to three), as opposed to Iron Chef, where early episodes had two chefs without assistants and later episodes had two chefs and one assistant per side. The assistants brought in by the Iron Chefs are as follows:

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• Batali - Anne Burrell and Mark Ladner
• Cora - Lorilynn Bauer and David Schimmel
• Flay - Wayne Harley Brachman, Anthony Fusco, Dan Millacko, Neil Manacle, Brian Ray, and Patricia Yeo
• Morimoto - Ariki Omae, Takao Iinuma, and Troy Thompson
• Puck - Lee Hefter and Sherry Yard
• Sakai - Kinya Komoda and Kaoru Ushimoda

The rules in Iron Chef America is also thought of as being less slanted towards the Iron Chef: on Iron Chef the Iron Chef's food was always tasted second, while on Iron Chef America, a coin flip before the show determines which chef's food is tasted first. Chefs also had the tendency to borrow equipment from the opposite side of Kitchen Stadium when the corresponding equipment on their side broke down (which occurred surprisingly frequently in the first season), a no-no on Iron Chef. Curiously, unlike Iron Chef or Iron Chef USA, the Iron Chefs do not usually work from the right side of the kitchen -- with the exception of Batali, the Iron Chefs typically worked from the left kitchen.

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Like Iron Chef, as the tasting and judgement takes upwards of 45 minutes to complete (although it is edited down to five to ten minutes per chef in postproduction), the dishes tend to be soups and stews, which tend to improve in flavor over time, or dishes that could easily be served cold. In Iron Chef America, the chef serving second is allowed to reheat their dishes, which was allowed on Iron Chef but not on Iron Chef USA.

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