This event is modeled after the Iron Chef competition itself. In the show, two chefs flaunt their culinary powers, each trying to outdo the other with the variety, style and presentation of their dishes. Each week Kaga Takeshi, the host of The Iron Chef, invites a "challenger" to Kitchen Stadium (below) to do battle against one of the four Iron Chefs. The challenger chooses his opponent, and Kaga reveals the secret ingredient. Each chef and his team then has one hour to prepare a variety of dishes that all feature the secret ingredient for a panel of judges. The judges rate the food on its flavor, presentation, and originality and vote on a winner. The chef with the most votes is declared the winner.
While it would be quite amusing to watch two teams attempt to prepare a meal in under one hour here in the lab, our limited resources dictate that we modify the competition slightly. Most of the rules have been modified slightly from the television version.
The scoring will be determined as follows. Each team will be required to provide three members of their teams judges, Each judge will be responsible for deciding the winner between two of the other teams meals. For example, France will provide three judges: one will judge between Italy and China, one will judge between China and Japan and the third will judge between Italy and Japan. The judges will rank the meals on the following categories:
The judge will then declare a winner between the two teams he is considering based on the above criteria. Each "win" is worth 10 points to the team. So, the team with the most appealing dishes could receive up to 60 points (if they win all the judges rate their meal over the other team's meal).
In addition, teams will receive 1 point for every person on their team who helps cook, and 1 point for every person who comes to eat. (The same person can be counted in both categories.) Two dishes will also receive the "most creative use of the secret ingredient" award (to be decided by me), which are worth 5 points each. These two awards may go to the same team.
Teams will lose points for being late to the competition at the rate of 1 point every 5 minutes. Teams who fail to clean up their areas when the evening is over will be penalized 10 points.
*** Remember, the secret ingredient must be featured in all dishes! Ask me if you have questions about what counts. ***
Yes, I am (now) aware that this event takes place on Superbowl
Sunday. The event will begin at 5pm; Superbowl kickoff is at 6:19 or
something like that. The cooking and the work will long be over by
then, anyway. So people who want to participate have two options:
come to the dinners, and stay to watch the game at the lab (I will
work this out), or come to the dinners and leave at 5:45 in time to
get somewhere else to watch the game.
A note on vegetarianism
Our goal is not to discriminate against vegetarians, while still allowing appreciation for a full range of foods. To strike a balance, we have come up with the following plan.
Judges must be willing to eat anything they are served. Specifically, they must be willing to try all the dishes from the two teams they are judging. Vegetarians (obviously not strict ones) may be judges if they are willing to eat meat if it is among the dishes they are tasting.
However, each team must provide a "sufficient" offering for vegetarians. In other words, from your food, a vegetarian should be able to get a reasonable meal. (Think like you would for cooking GSL.)
Christine J. Alvarado (calvarad@ai.mit.edu)
Last modified: Tue Jan 23 21:25:21 2001