I’m late to this game, I realize, but I’ve finally taken notice of the Food Network’s Chopped show. Sure I had seen it for a few minutes here and there, and just thought to myself, “Looks stressful.” Cooking is already stressful for me, since I have questionable multi-tasking skills, and I often feel pressured when I don’t even need to. Adding additional layers of pressure by having to prepare things in a hurry with judges poised to criticize the “lack of brininess in the remoulade” just isn’t very appealing to me.
Just for those who were paying even less attention to Chopped than I was, it’s in the genre of cooking competition reality TV, with the premise in this case being that each contestant must prepare an appetizer, entree, and dessert, using four unusual ingredients that are in their basket for each course of the meal (they’re permitted to supplement with more basic ingredients available to them). They’re given very little time to come up with something special that will please their culinary judges. In classic reality show style, the one chef who doesn’t make the grade in each round is “chopped,” i.e. eliminated from the show.
The thing that really got my attention, though, was that this year they’ve introduced a new variant, combining it with some old standby reality show elements of the getting “voted off the island” variety, so we now have Chopped Castaways, in which the contestants are stranded on a remote island, where they not only have to cook with a handful of prescribed ingredients, they have to combine it with survival skills like being able to spear a fish (before it spears you back) or shoot your main entree ingredient with a bow and arrow.
This is all probably leading to a cannibal edition of the show (Chopped: Better You Than Me), but let’s hope we’re still a few years away from that.
Of course my mind went immediately to a potential bluegrass version of the show, based in that environment well-known to musicians, one as fraught with imminent danger as any deserted island in the Indian Ocean: The Road.
Those who have played music professionally in this hostile environment understand the challenges of eating well, making the most of the resources you have, and meeting a tight schedule. Here’s what I imagine Chopped: Highway of Regret might look like:
Four seasoned (not literally) road musicians have arrived on the set, which has been designed to look like the artist parking area of a bluegrass festival. Each has been presented with a banjo case of ingredients which reflect what might be available either at a late night truck stop convenience store, a festival vendor, a festival campground, or somewhere in the interior of a van or tour bus. They have the use of a few basic pans, a camp stove, a grill, or an open fire. We’ll observe the choices and relay the judges’ opinions of one of those contestants, whom we’ll call “Rudy.”
First the appetizer:
The contestants must prepare an appetizer based on the following four ingredients found in the case: stale hot dog buns, whole dill pickles, a cup of sunflower seeds from a van cupholder, and a can of Sprite.
In 20 minutes, Rudy, showing plenty of promise, sliced the buns cross-ways and toasted them in a pan to create hot dog bun medallions with a sautéed sunflower seed-and-sprite reduction, with the pickles finely sliced and used as a garniture.
The judges were generally favorable, with one judge praising the “nutty quality of the sunflower seed fond, which had been nicely deglazed with the Sprite.”
Next the entree, using the following ingredients: beef jerky, a can of Pringles, a container of cherry yogurt, and five mustard packets from the revolving hot dog grill section of the Love’s:
In 30 minutes, our contestant created a layered country-fried jerky faux-steak, pan-seared and Pringle-encrusted, with a light mustard demi-glace, accented by a cherry yogurt drizzle.
One judge was critical of the drizzle, feeling that the yogurt ingredient hadn’t been fully incorporated, but others praised the crispy chewiness of the chip-encrusted jerky layers and the subtle addition of the cherry notes to the mustard-dominant flavor milieu.
Finally, dessert:
The banjo case revealed these ingredients: green chile-flavored pistachios, Little Debbie’s oatmeal cream pies, moonshine, and a banana.
Here’s where Rudy really outdid himself and won the favor of the judges, assuring he would avoid being chopped from the episode and sent walking down the Chopped Highway of Regret:
Rudy sliced the banana and the oatmeal cream pies longways, pan-frying them in butter and placing them, alternating, side-by-side, showcasing classic ratatouille technique. He deglazed the pan with moonshine, stirring in the pistachios to create a moonshine-pistachio mousseline. Judges praised the aromatic green chile accent of the mousseline, saying it added the proper piquant contrast to the mildness of the banana-oatmeal cream pie structure.
That last one is actually making me hungry.
