Iron Chef (料理の鉄人, Ryōri no Tetsujin, literally "Ironmen of Cooking") is a Japanese television cooking show produced by Fuji Television. The series, which premiered on October 10, 1993, was a stylized cook-off featuring guest chefs challenging one of the show's resident "Iron Chefs" in a timed cooking battle built around a specific theme ingredient. The series ended on September 24, 1999, although four occasional specials were produced from January 5, 2000 to January 2, 2002. The series aired 309 episodes. Repeats are regularly aired on the Food Network in Canada, the Cooking Channel in the United States, and on Special Broadcasting Service in Australia. There are 5 spinoffs, the latest being Iron Chef: Quest for an Iron Legend.
Fuji TV aired a new version of the show, titled Iron Chef (アイアンシェフ, Aian Shefu), starting on October 26, 2012.
The host of the show was the flamboyant Takeshi Kaga, known on the show as the aristocrat Chairman Kaga (鹿賀主宰, Kaga Shusai). He began most episodes with his signature words, taken from Arthur Rimbaud, "If memory serves me right...「私の記憶が確かならば…」"(Jadis) si je me souviens bien..." and started the cooking time with the phrase "Allez Cuisine!". The show had two regular commentators, Kenji Fukui, who narrated the action on the floor, and Yukio Hattori, a food scholar and founder of the Hattori Nutrition College. A floor reporter, Shinichiro Ohta, reported to Fukui on what the challengers and Iron Chefs were preparing, their strategy, and their comments, breaking Fukui's train of commentary with a polite "Fukui-san?". One or two guest commentators (who also served as judges) also made frequent appearances. The commentary covered ingredients, history of contenders, and other background information to give viewers context for what was happening in the kitchen.
The kayfabe "story" behind Iron Chef is recounted at the beginning of every episode. A title card, with a quote from famed French food author Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin first appeared: "Tell me what you eat, and I'll tell you what you are." Then, it was said that Kaga "realized his dream in a form never seen before" and specially constructed a cooking arena called "Kitchen Stadium". There, visiting chefs from "around the world" would compete against his Gourmet Academy, led by his three (later four) Iron Chefs. Chairman Kaga himself was a showpiece, dressed in outlandish examples of men's formal attire. The English name Iron Chef comes from the show itself: Kaga would use this translation of the Japanese title when summoning his chefs at the beginning of the "battle"
From the beginning of the show in 1993, the three Iron Chefs were: Iron Chef Japanese Rokusaburo Michiba, Iron Chef Chinese Chen Kenichi, and Iron Chef French Yutaka Ishinabe. After the first season, Ishinabe decided to step down and become an 'honorary Iron Chef', thus passing the mantle of Iron Chef French to Hiroyuki Sakai in 1994. Ishinabe returned for two more battles during season three. At the beginning of season four in 1996, Michiba announced his retirement and debuted Koumei Nakamura as the new Iron Chef Japanese. Michiba returned on rare occasions for special Kitchen Stadium battles. In 1997, Chairman Kaga announced a new, additional Iron Chef to the group: Iron Chef Italian Masahiko Kobe. He was the youngest of the Iron Chefs and battled sparingly throughout the rest of the show, ascending to the stage separately from the three main Iron Chefs, and surrounded by a chamber string ensemble. In 1998, Nakamura also decided to retire and passed the title of Iron Chef Japanese to Masaharu Morimoto.
Iron Chef statistics:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Chef#External_linksOriginally, challengers vied with each other in preliminary "battles" to earn the right to face an Iron Chef in a 90-minute competition, and should a challenger win twice against Iron Chefs, the challenger would be given the title of "Honorary Iron Chef". However, this format proved unpopular, the preliminary round was scrapped and the main contest was reduced to the now familiar 60 minutes. The awarding of honorary Iron Chef titles to challengers was also discontinued (although this was largely a moot point as few challengers ever defeated two Iron Chefs in separate contests), but was given as an emeritus title for a retiring Iron Chef. Once honorary titles were no longer issued, challengers who beat an Iron Chef had to settle for, according to the English version's introduction, "the people's ovation and fame forever".
In each episode, chefs have one hour to cook and improvise a multicourse meal around a theme ingredient that must be present in each dish. Before the actual taping, the chefs are given a short list of possible themes, allowing the producers of the show to get any ingredients that may be needed. Judges' primary goal was said to be determining which chef was able to "best express the unique qualities of the theme ingredient". In rare cases, the format changed—angler fish battles were typically 75 minutes in length, and noodle battles had the Iron Chef stop after 50 minutes of cooking, only to resume after the challenger's dishes were tasted so that the noodles could be served right after cooking.
Featured ingredients tend toward the exotic and expensive. Many theme ingredients reflect the Japanese origin of the show—river eel, tofu, udon—though ingredients more familiar in the West, such as bell peppers, summer corn, and peaches, are spotlighted, as well. In one episode devoted to asparagus, the challenger boasted that he used over $1,000 worth of lobster (which he then discarded) simply to flavor his asparagus in this battle against Iron Chef Morimoto.
Initially, a minimum of three dishes was to be prepared, although some challengers have finished only a single dish; four is the typical number. The record for highest number of dishes prepared for a battle was eight, first set by challenger Kenji Kaji against Iron Chef Michiba in "Battle Umeboshi". Five (later six) servings of each dish are prepared, one each for the chairman and judges, and one for photography and presentation.
Throughout the cook-off, running commentary is made in a booth near the cooking area by an announcer, Kenji Fukui; a commentator, Yukio Hattori, and one or two of the guest judges, with one floor reporter (sometimes two; normally Shinichiro Ohta) providing details of the action on each side. The commentators and judges discuss the style of cooking, culinary traditions and unusual food preparation. At the end of the hour, after end-of-battle interviews with both competitors, each dish is presented to the camera, with a description of its properties (written by the show's screenwriters based on the chef's explanation) read by the announcer. Then, a panel of three (later expanded to four, and later still, five) judges, of which typically one is a professional critic, tastes the dishes and judges them based on taste, presentation, and originality. Each chef may be awarded up to 20 points by each judge, with 10 given for taste and five each for presentation and originality. The chef with the greatest score wins the competition. (In earlier four-judge episodes, the win went to the chef who won three of the four judges, or, failing that, the chef who makes the highest points total.)
Chairman Kaga tastes the dishes along with the judges. While he occasionally makes comments and seeks input from judges during tasting, he generally does not participate in scoring; he did do so, however, during the 2000th Dish Battle. During this episode, a team of French cuisine chefs—captain Hiroyuki Sakai, the original Iron Chef French Yutaka Ishinabe, and former challenger Etsuo Joh—battled a team of Chinese cuisine chefs composed of captain Chen Kenichi, former challenger Sozo Myamoto, and former challenger Yuji Wakiya (who would later be Iron Chef Chinese on the 2012 revival). To break the tie, Chairman Kaga asked them to allow him this one instance of selfishness, and he cast his vote for the French team.
The stage setting for the show, "Kitchen Stadium" (キッチンスタジアム, Kitchin Sutajiamu), the high-quality (and sometimes very expensive) ingredients used in the cooking battles, and Kaga's extravagant costumes required the show to have a budget far higher than those of most other cooking shows. Some statistics: 893 portions of foie gras, 54 sea bream, 827 Ise shrimp, 964 matsutake mushrooms, 4,593 eggs, 1,489 truffles, 4,651 g of caviar, and 84 pieces of shark fin were used during the show, bringing the total grocery bill to ¥843,354,407[6] (or about $7,115,520). One of the most expensive battles was Battle Swallow's Nest, which ran over $40,000 solely for that ingredient, not counting large quantities of shark's fin; for the battle, the producers were permitted to return any unused portions to Hattori Nutrition College.
While always a success in Japan, Iron Chef became a surprise hit in the United States when it was picked up by the Food Network in 1999 and dubbed into English. Part of the U.S. appeal was due to the dubbing, which gave the show a campy charm that evoked English-dubbed Chinese kung fu movies of the 1970s. Audiences also found amusing some of the over-the-top culinary concoctions regularly featured on the show, eventually leading to a spoof on Saturday Night Live.
Youtube Link to episodes:
https://www.youtube.com/show/SC3UjCSXM0fLP8m4F0WqNekw?sbp=GhoSGFVDM1VqQ1NYTTBmTFA4bTRGMFdxTmVrdw%253D%253DIron Chef Opening Sequence
Mango
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EF1ZkASJ-7I&list=ELFZj-5Gm85dtucNV6YW6IxwRice Battle
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrB6cjh92yw&list=ELFZj-5Gm85dtucNV6YW6IxwSquid
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bFFGSVdjx4&list=ELFZj-5Gm85dtucNV6YW6IxwSalmon
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tG8jpNCQ794&list=ELFZj-5Gm85dtucNV6YW6IxwIron Chef Hiroyuki Sakai and Kenichi Chen Interview at Iron Chef Event 2010
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