By Megan Costanzo
You can learn fun new techniques and different food preparations by watching cooking competition shows. You might even want to make dinner yourself and enjoy it with your friends. You will be surprised if you give it a fair chance. Have you tried Sugar Rush, The Final Table, and The Great British Baking Show, three popular cooking competition shows?
Sugar Rush is the first show I would like to tell you about. It is one example of a cooking competition show. In Sugar Rush there are four teams of two at the start. The three main criteria for this show are the theme of each episode, looks/design, and taste. Some examples of themes consist of “Kids in a Candy Store,” “Cake By the Ocean,” and “The Family that Bakes Together.” There are always three rounds. The first round is cupcakes, the second round is confections, and the third and last round is cakes. Time is the most important ingredient as teams race up against the clock and each other. If you save time in the first two rounds, then you get to add this time as extra time to the final round. A team gets eliminated each round, leaving the final two teams for the end to compete for the ten thousand dollar prize.
The next show I would like to share is The Final Table. The Final Table is a national cooking competition show. It starts with 24 teams of two, most of the contestants are Michelin Star cooks themselves. Each episode starts with a special dish from different countries and the judges are also from that country. The competitors cook one main national dish. Italy, Japan, and Mexico are just a few examples. The lowest scoring three teams are given a second challenge where they are required to cook again. The teams are given a specific ingredient which is the star of the dish, whatever they cook must use this ingredient as the star ingredient. This is called the Final Plate challenge, and is judged by a culinary legend from that country. .
The very last show I would like to tell you about is called The Great British Baking Show. This is another example of a cooking competition show. In The Great British Baking Show there are twelve individuals that bake in the Tent, which is the cooking area on a large piece of property in England. Here are the unique Criteria for this show. In each episode, there are three different kinds of challenges. The Signature challenge is theme based and unique because contestants practice at home and perfect it for the show. In the Technical Challenge Contestant bakers are given one recipe to bake they have never made before, and is always judged blind. The Final challenge is the Showstopper Challenge. It is judged on presentation and taste. At the end of each episode someone is eliminated and the best gets the Star Baker Title.
Do you feel like recreating some of the show’s creations? Did I peak your interest to check out these shows? My favorites shows are The Final Table and Sugar Rush. I like The Final Table because of the idea of the contestes all owning Michelin Star restaurants. Mostly I like the cool creations and the contestant’s background (culinary legends.) I love Sugar Rush because of the themes and the intense elements, like watching the clock tick down and guessing who is going to get eliminated. I enjoy figuring out what my strategy or idea for theme and flavors would be if I was on the show. It is a way of learning new techniques from the competitors. All these shows are great and can be found on Netflix.
