[BlogEntry] Ok, I think Iron Chef America cheated

The other night I'm watching Iron Chef America, and the battle is between an American chef specializing in "American Western" cooking. The man is so cowboy that his entire staff all wore Stetson hats to the kitchen. For his battle he chooses chef Morimoto, the alumni of the original Iron Chef and basically the best of them all. The "tale of the tape" for the man showed something like a 72-12 record.

And what's the secret ingredient? Chili peppers.

Aww come on! That's hardly fair. During the final tasting, chef Morimoto even said, "I've never used them before, I really don't know anything about the different kinds. So I basically tasted them all and then based on the flavor, here's what I made." Without knowing the names he just held up different peppers, saying "In this dish, I used this one." There was a great shot of him during the battle biting into the peppers one after another, and then he gets to the jalapeno and nearly choked on it. For the rest of the battle you could see him sweating.

He did indeed lose the battle, but only by a point. Not bad for someone who was cooking with an ingredient he'd never used before. Still, though, I think that had to be one of the more lopsided battles I've ever seen.