The Taste: Tuesday at 8|7c on ABC

I used to be obsessed with cooking shows and cooking competition shows.  Now they all tend to be the same and have lost their appeal.  I started watching The Taste because it is  “The Voice” of cooking!  You don’t pick a team based on looks, profession or experience, you pick them based on a blind tasting.  There are four well known chefs that lead each team.  

Anthony Bourdain

Nigella Lawson

Brian Malarkey

Ludo Lefebvre (My Favorite!)

 Teams of 4 are picked based only on a spoon full of food the chefs taste and they lock in a decision of if they want that food on their team.  After all decision are locked in and non-reversible, they meet the person behind the spoon and they either are happy they picked them, or they are upset they let them go.  This is based on if the person is a professional chef or home cook, not based on looks.  It is a good concept although one Chef, Anthony Bourdain, can pick out the professional chefs easily from the home chefs. 

Each of the four chefs, have 4 contestants on their team.  There are two cooking challengers per episode.  For the first challenge it is all about impressing a special outside judge.  All the team members on each team cook a meal in a spoon based on the challenge at hand, and then the Chef judges pick which spoon is the best on their team and present it to the special outside judge.  That outside judge picks his favorite of the 4 spoons and the winner gets immunity for the elimination challenge. 

For the elimination challenge, each contestant prepares a dish based on some aspect of the previous immunity challenge and the 4 chef judges have no idea who cooked what as they do a blind tasting.  They then choose their favorite dish and their least favorite dish.  This could either help or hurt their team and there have definitely been some chefs who have chosen their team member as the losing dish.  That is what makes it fun!  Does this sound like something that interests you?  I wasn’t sure at first but it is a jammed pack hour of good competition and in the end someone goes home with a lot more money than they came in with!

 I do not want to give the show away if you have not seen it, but I have seen every episode so far and I love the challenges and I love the fact that they can send their own team home based on if they like their food or not.  This show has some appeal and it is worth checking out!  If you are interested, you should check out the latest show so you can catch up on all of the fun!  http://abc.tv/Z3jimp.

Watch it and tell me what you think!  I totally recommend it!  :o)