Like action, romance, and horror genres, competitive cooking shows are a subgenre of reality television. Typically, competitive cooking shows involve contestants competing with one another through various cooking challenges, such as preparing a dish with specific ingredients within a time limit. Each contestant is competing for a winning title and grand prize (usually in the form of money). A panel of judges, usually celebrities or famous chefs, will assess the contestants based on their culinary dishes. Ultimately, they decide who wins amongsst the competition. These competitive cooking shows are not only fun and dynamic, but they also showcase an integral aspect of everyone's lives: food! For decades, countless cooking competitions graced people's televisions. However, which cooking competitions reign supreme and are worth watching?
Classic (And Binge-Worthy) Competitive Cooking Shows
Competitive cooking shows existed for decades, providing an eclectic mix of entertainment, drama, and (mostly) delicious food, making great television programs for families and passionate foodies. Throughout the years, competitive cooking shows graced living room televisions every evening. However, they can be streamed and enjoyed anytime and anywhere in the modern age. There are many food-filled, drama-packed available for foodies to watch nowadays, but some classics are worth a binge-watch.
- Did You Know? The kitchen set is made with the contestants in mind in competitive cooking shows. The kitchen is spacious so that the ingredients are easily accessible. At the same time, the area is expansive with a well-organized pantry, giving contestants room to move around with pots and pans (without bumping into one another). At the same time, the set is designed to resemble an organized home kitchen that's even complete with windows peeking outdoors!
For A Side Of Drama With Foodie Flare, Watch Top Chef
Firstly, with over 18 seasons, Top Chef has enough episodes to keep binge-watchers at bay. This American reality competitive cooking show was recognized for several awards and recognitions (especially in the mid-2000s). The show's format involves chefs competing through several cooking challenges. These challenges include the quick-fire challenge (where cooks will prepare a dish using a specific ingredient in an allotted time) and the elimination challenge (a high-pressure competition for chefs to recreate a dish with a central theme).
In each challenge, a panel of judges (typically celebrity chefs or personalities) will taste the dishes and ultimately decide each contestant's fate. Each season's winner—or the last chef standing—wins $250,000! Since 2006, Top Chef's success led to the creation of several spin-off series, including Top Chef Masters, Top Chef Junior, Top Chef Amateurs, and Top Chef Just Desserts.
Another classic competitive show worth watching is Iron Chef. Though Iron Chef USA is known for its quirkiness, its creativity rose from the original Iron Chef. With over 290 episodes, this Japanese competitive cooking show was famous in its heyday, running from 1993 to 1999! The show was a bedazzling spectacle team of challenger chefs competing with one of the show's Iron Chefs. Chosen challengers would pick the Chef they'd like to contend with, including Iron Chef's Chen Kenichi, Yutaka Ishinabe, Hiroyuki Sakai, Masahiko Kobe, Rokusaburo Michiba, Koumei Nakamura, or Masaharu Morimoto. But, of course, the show wasn't complete without Chairman Kaga (played by Japanese television personality Takeshi Kaga), known for his spiffy personality and extravagant costumes.
Iron Chef was like any other competitive cooking show where chefs prepared dishes (with their dedicated team of cooks) based on the episode's mystery ingredient. However, the ingredients in the show were often luxurious and extravagant. According to Iron Chef: The Official Cookbook, the show featured ingredients that cost ¥843,354,407 (or about $7,115,520)! The ingredients used included:
- Foie gas
- Sea bream
- Isle shrimps
- Matsutake mushrooms
- Truffles
- Caviar
- Shark's fin
- Swallow's nest
The Iron Chefs were (mostly) unbeatable, but challenger chefs from around the globe took the plunge and challenged them anyway. The panel of judges to taste the dishes and decide the winner consisted of famous Japanese personalities. Iron Chef was a big hit in Japan. It became even more popular in North America in an English-dubbed version. Foodies will be on the edge of their seats watching Iron Chef from the dramatic camera angles to the gleaming kitchen stadium!
- Did You Know? More than 12,000 people apply to be on The Great British Bake Off, a popular baking competition show since 2010. Unfortunately, only 300 to 400 people are selected for a first-round audition. After that, 50 to 60 people make it to the second round of tryouts!
Trending Competitive Shows Worth Watching
Competitive food shows are a dime a dozen in today's entertainment industry, so there's a ton of options for foodies interested in the competition! Streaming services and the Internet made competitive food programs more accessible than ever. Better yet, there are multiple sub-genres for any foodie! For example, cake and pastry lovers will enjoy watching The Great British Bake Off on Netflix. At the same time, Man Versus Food will appeal to those interested in competitive eating. Otherwise, Masterchef and Netflix's The Final Table are shows great for binge-watching!
Today, competitive food shows try to stand out from each other, offering a mélange of surprises, incentives, and mystery ingredients. Many shows also cater to specific viewers, such as cake-decorating competitions to amazing vegan food influencers! Although "worthwhile" competitive food shows are subjective, everyone who watches them can agree: it's all about the food.
