ICA; Any preplanning / rehearsal?

[mucho gordo]

It seems their pantry has every edible food item known to man. Even the most obscure ingredient, things no one has ever heard of, is within arm's reach for a chef. It's as though they know ahead of time what they're going to use. How do they do it?

[goodhealthgourmet]

http://www.villagevoice.com/2008-02-19/restaurants/iron-chef-boyardee/
http://www.ivillage.com/behind-scenes-iron-chef-america/3-h-74103
http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/11500312
http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/8717337
http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/story?id=5444825&page=1
http://www.amateurgourmet.com/2006/01...

there was a special on FN back in '07 that revealed all the "secrets" behind the scenes.

[ipsedixit]

Details here: http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/11500312

[ribeye621]

There was a pretty interesting article in Food Network magazine a few months ago about the whole process. For rehearsal, they have crew members cooking with wacky secret ingredients, like Doritos.

[ferret]

Even though the "secret" ingredient isn't a complete secret it's still tough to turn out the dishes within the allotted time. If there was no advance notice of possible ingredients they couldn't possibly do it in an hour. It's no different than being given course materials and not knowing what's on the final exam.

[Fukui San]

From various interviews from competing chefs, the process is this. They are given three or so possible ingredients. They submit to the show a shopping list for each of the possible ingredients. When they arrive at the studio, they do a check of their ingredients, and at that moment when they see what the show has provided they know which of the possible ingredients it is.

[mucho gordo]

Thank you, Fukui San, for confirming that there is some pre-planning. The tasks would be almost impossible without it, even for the most skilled chef.
I just read an informative piece on the original Japanese show and learned that the Iron Chef / challenger match-up preselected. Is this true for ICA?

[ferret]

Yes. Only the "selected" Iron Chef is present for the taping.

[mucho gordo]

But it is the challenger who does the selecting, right?

[scubadoo97]

I don't think so since these chefs have a very busy schedule with their many restaurants so it's really who is available for this taping. If Flay is not available it's going to be Simon, Garces or Cora