[Sca-cooks] "Cooking Under Fire"

[Stefan li Rous]

Adamantius replied to Huette:
> > For reasons unknown to me I have been watching that PBS series,
> > "Cooking Under Fire", with
> > Ming Tsai, Todd English and Michael Ruhlman.  When they remove a
> > contestant from the contest,
> > the contestant is "86'd".  It really isn't a good show.  I haven't
> > learned anything about
> > recipes or food that I didn't already know before.  The only thing I
> > have learned is that
> > I wouldn't want to be given one hour to produce a couple of
> > impressive dishes where the kitchen
> > is too small and everyone has to compete for burners or oven space.
> > Fortunately, the show
> > is only 1/2 hour.  Unfortunately, there is nothing else of interest
> > opposite it.
>
> I haven't seen it yet. Under the right circumstances, I could
> probably make a phone call tonight and do the exact same thing
> tomorrow, but I confess a reality TV show in which twelve (or however
> many it is) people compete for a job in a fine New York City
> restaurant is a little _too_ real for me.

Adamantius, I wish you or some of the other folks on this list who have 
worked in a commercial kitchen would watch some of this show and give 
us your opinions. Until you described some of your "adventures" in a 
commercial kitchen I thought of them as being rather sedate, 
non-dangerous places to work. I've watched the first two of this series 
and am enjoying it. The kitchen was picked to be purposefully small to 
increase some of the pressure and interaction between the contestants. 
So, there is a bit of manipulation of things to increase the theatrics. 
However, the show seems a lot less artificial than the usual Survivor 
shows and particularly Donald Trumps "Apprentice" series. But then, 
I've never worked in a fast food kitchen much less a large four-star 
restaurant one.

Since they seem to be intent on eliminating one cook each show, the 
kitchen should rapidly get less crowded.

I do wonder about some of the contestants. But then like the Survivor 
ones, where it is obvious that they've always avoided folks with any 
real survival or wilderness experience, they may be avoiding having too 
many really experienced cooks on this show. One of the tasks in the 
selection process was to dice an onion. Even *I* could have done better 
than some of those folks. And most of the cooks here could do much 
better.

I am finding it interesting the different dishes that the contestants 
end up creating. Similar to the siege cooking contests which we've 
sometimes discussed. And like many SCA feasts, there is the challenge 
of cooking in an unfamiliar kitchen with unknown quantities of tools 
and pans. At least with SCA feasts you've brought or arranged for all 
the ingredients, so you aren't hunting around for what might or might 
not be there.

One of the first contests was to cook an egg they were given. They 
could use other ingredients they found in the kitchen. I probably would 
have hard-boiled the egg and then cut it decoratively and used bits of 
vegetation and such to make a pretty presentation. I'm rather surprised 
that none of the contestants did this. Perhaps a hard-boiled egg is too 
"simple". Other entries were eggs scrambled with various items and 
omelets.

Stefan
--------
THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
    Mark S. Harris           Austin, Texas          
StefanliRous at austin.rr.com
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