Iron Chef

Produced by Fuji TV, the original title of Iron Chef is Ironmen of Cooking, or Ryōri no tetsujin in Japanese. Iron Chef started airing in 1993. It was not just any ordinary cooking show because it featured a contest between chefs, which culminated in a final battle every season. After 6 years and 300 episodes, the Iron Chef Japan show was discontinued. However, it was such a big hit that they still had re-runs of it up until 2002. There is an Iron Chef DVD available in the market. You can find both Iron Chef DVD Japanese and English versions either on the internet or at selected video stores.

Hosted by the flashy Takeshi Kaga, referred to as Chairman Kaga, the Iron Chef theme has an eccentric flavor that is common to cooking game shows. There were exaggerated productions mentioned by the guest commentators who serve as the judges of the battle. Their commentary is funny but enlightening as well.

This was such a great success in Japan that the Food Network decided to come up with an American version of it, called the Iron Chef America. The title Iron Chef still came from the show itself because it was the term used by Kaga to refer to the chefs at the beginning of each battle. The contestants specialized in different cuisines so they were referred to as Iron Chef France, Iron Chef Chinese, Iron Chef Japanese, and so on.

It was not surprising that the original Iron Chef became a favorite in the United States. It was dubbed in English, which contributed a unique appeal to the program, not because the dub was well done but it made the show more comedic in a certain way. The viewers enjoyed the show tremendously because of the extraordinary food presented, such as the Iron Chef sauce, Iron Chef beets, and over-the-top dishes and recipes that the chefs attempted in the effort to win the contest.

An example of over-the-top Iron Chef recipes are the asparagus flavored with a thousand dollar worth of lobster created by a challenger of Iron Chef, Morimoto. The lobster was just discarded after using it to flavor the asparagus. Another recipe is the dessert cod soft roe ice cream which was inedible according to the panel of judges. Even though Chef Hiroyuki Sakai failed in the category of dessert recipe, he still won the contest overall.

Because of the huge success of Iron Chef, the show has been parodied in different media, like the Iron Chef Restaurant, as well as Iron Chef America wallpaper. Iron Chef America events were also conducted to celebrate the popularity of the program.