Top Chef vs. Hell's Kitchen

My wife, whose culinary skills run strong through her family, has been watching a great cooking reality show, Top Chef, for over two years now. I have to admit I’m hooked, also, despite barely being able to boil water. But in my quest for the bizarre, and a desire to avenge myself for what she’s done to me, I now have her watching a second cooking reality show: Hell’s Kitchen.

Top Chef really is an excellent show – entertaining, informative, and filled with its share of drama, as each week a contending chef is voted off by a panel of four engaging judges. Two judges, Padma Lakshmi and chef Tom Colicchio, share main hosting duties. Each episode starts with a quick cooking challenge, such as coming up with a dish on the spot to go with a random selection of beer, the winner of which gets immunity from elimination. Then it’s off to the main challenge. This can be anything from highbrow dinner parties for powerful Hollywood celebrities to cooking for the masses at a Bears game, but whatever the main challenge is, it’s always stressful. The fascinating part is the dishes the chefs come up with to meet each contest. It’s a great show for aspiring chefs, those looking to up their game, and even rookies like me, who can actually learn a few things each episode.

If Top Chef is the … let’s say … Oprah of the cooking shows, Hell’s Kitchen is the Jerry Springer.

The shows are similarly formatted: a beginning quick challenge, a main challenge, and an elimination. But that’s where any resemblance ends. Hell’s Kitchen is culinary boot camp, and Chef Gordon Ramsay is the master drill sergeant. The corps of aspiring chefs are yelled and cursed at, food is thrown, grown men are sent to their rooms, rapid-fire questions are expected to be answered. The losing team for the opening quick challenge is punished with degrading tasks, such as sifting through garbage or picking peppers in hundred-degree heat. The main challenge is daunting: working in a mock-up restaurant, serving real customers, every detail done to Chef Ramsay’s exacting expectations. A running argument with my wife is whether these chefs are as good as the ones on Top Chef (though at least two were hired for shock value, i.e. to infuriate Gordon). I waver; maybe they are, but such constant heavy stress reduces one to a pitiable and quivering piece of incompetence. In any event, the show is often unbelievable, hard-to-watch in a mouth-agape, guilty-pleasure sort of way. While I could see myself on Top Chef (if I had the tons of required talent) I would never, ever, ever willingly participate in Hell’s Kitchen.

Which is the better show? Hmmmmm. Which is ‘better’: a symphony by Beethoven, or a Metallica CD? Gone With the Wind, or Apocalypse Now? Is it ‘better’ to be able to hit a bulls-eye a hundred yards away, or know with certainty that you can get off a decent shot while being shot at? It’s a combination of taste, and what skills you want to focus on. As for the shows, I enjoy ’em both.