| Chopped | |
|---|---|
Intertitle |
|
| Genre | Cooking show |
| Created by | Michael Krupat |
| Directed by | Michael Pearlman |
| Presented by | Ted Allen |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Language(s) | English |
| No. of seasons | 9 |
| No. of episodes | 101 (List of episodes) |
| Production | |
| Executive producer(s) | Linda Lea Dave Noll (of City Lights Television) Vivian Sorenson (co-exec.) |
| Producer(s) | Daniel Kay Tina Nguyen Karey Green Kirsten Moberg Kate Kenny Edward Schindler (supervising prods.) Loe Fahie (line prod.) |
| Editor(s) | Axuve Espinosa |
| Running time | 1 hour |
| Production company(s) | Notional |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | Food Network |
| Original run | January 13, 2009 – present |
| External links | |
| Website | |
Chopped is a reality based cooking television series created by Michael Krupat, produced by Daniel Kay, and hosted by Ted Allen that pits four chefs against each other competiting for a chance to win $10,000. New episodes air every Tuesday at 10pm EST on Food Network.
Contents |
In each episode, four chefs compete. Their challenge is to take a mystery box of ingredients and turn them into a dish that is judged on their originality, presentation, and taste with minimal time to plan and execute.[1][2] The show is divided into three rounds: "Appetizer", "Entrée", and "Dessert". In each round, the chefs are given a basket containing between three and five ingredients, and the dish each competitor prepares must contain each of those ingredients. The ingredients are often ones which are not commonly prepared together. For example, in "Yucca, Watermelon, Tortillas," the episode which originally aired on February 10, 2009, the appetizer course boxes contained watermelon, canned sardines, pepper jack cheese, and zucchini.
The competitors are given access to a pantry and refrigerator stocked with a wide variety of other ingredients. Each round has a time limit: twenty minutes for the Appetizer round (thirty minutes in some season one episodes), and thirty minutes for the Entrée and Dessert rounds (some episodes gave the chefs 40 or 45 in the entrée round to allow them to handle whole large poultry, e.g. turkeys, geese, or ducks; another gave the chefs fifty minutes in the dessert round). The chefs must cook their dishes and complete four platings (one for each judge plus one "beauty plate") before time runs out. After each round, the judges critique the dishes based on presentation, taste, and creativity. The judges then decide which chef is "chopped," that is, eliminated from the competition. Thus, by the dessert round, only two chefs remain. When deciding the winner, the judges consider not only the dessert course, but the entire meal presented by each chef as a whole. The winner receives $10,000.
An episode of Chopped takes 12 to 14 hours to tape, with deliberations after each round taking about 90 minutes.[1] While contestants do not know the ingredients ahead of time, they are given a tour of the kitchen at the start of the day and some preparation, such as pre-heating ovens and bringing water to a boil, are done in advance of each round.[1] According to host Ted Allen, the show "was originally meant to be taped at some guy’s mansion with him and his crazy Chihuahua. A stuffy fellow in a tuxedo was to host, and the losing chef’s dish was then fed to the dog...it was too much for Food Network."[1]
Starting September 8, 2009, and continuing for three additional episodes, Food Network aired the "Chopped Champions Event", wherein 13 past winners returned and faced off against each other (four per episode) to retain their title of Chopped Champion.[1] The winner of an episode in the event earned an additional $10,000, and the winners of the first three episodes moved on to the next episode to face a new set of three previous champions.
Starting August 31, 2010, and continuing for four additional episodes, Food Network aired the "$50,000 Tournament". Sixteen past champions competed. The winners of the first four episodes competed against each other in the "Grand Finale" for the $50,000 prize. The winner was Madison Cowan, Chef and Caterer, Avenue Inc, New York, NY.
Starting March 6, 2011, and continuing for four additional episodes, Food Network aired the "All-Stars Tournament". Sixteen chefs competed. The first four episodes featured four types of chef: The Next Food Network Star contestants, Food Network celebrities, celebrity chefs, and Chopped judges, respectively. The winners of those four episodes then competed against each other in the "Grand Finale", where the winner received $50,000 to donate to a charity of his or her choice. Nate Appleman, a celebrity chef, won the competition and donated his $50,000 to Kawasaki Disease research, a disease from which his son suffered.
Starting August 30, 2011, and continuing for four additional episodes, Food Network aired another "$50,000 Tournament", due to the popularity the first competition had. 16 new past champions competed. The winner was Danielle Saunders, a private chef from New York, NY.
| Judges | Seasons | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | |
| Alex Guarnaschelli | ♦ | ♦ | ♦ | ♦ | ♦ | ♦ | ♦ | ♦ | ♦ | ♦ |
| Geoffrey Zakarian | ♦ | ♦ | ♦ | ♦ | ♦ | ♦ | ♦ | ♦ | ♦ | ♦ |
| Marc Murphy | ♦ | ♦ | ♦ | ♦ | ♦ | ♦ | ♦ | ♦ | ♦ | |
| Amanda Freitag | ♦ | ♦ | ♦ | ♦ | ♦ | ♦ | ♦ | ♦ | ♦ | |
| Aarón Sánchez | ♦ | ♦ | ♦ | ♦ | ♦ | ♦ | ♦ | ♦ | ♦ | |
| Chris Santos | ♦ | ♦ | ♦ | ♦ | ♦ | ♦ | ♦ | ♦ | ♦ | |
| Scott Conant | ♦ | ♦ | ♦ | ♦ | ♦ | ♦ | ♦ | |||
| Jody Williams | ♦ | ♦ | ♦ | |||||||
| Sue Torres | ♦ | ♦ | ||||||||
| Mark Bittman | ♦ | |||||||||
| Josh Capon | ♦ | |||||||||
| Marcus Samuelsson | ♦ | ♦ | ♦ | ♦ | ♦ | |||||
| Maneet Chauhan | ♦ | ♦ | ♦ | |||||||
| Ken Oringer | ♦ | |||||||||
| Zakary Pelaccio | ♦ | ♦ | ||||||||
| Susan Feniger | ♦ | |||||||||
| Seamus Mullen | ♦ | |||||||||
| Sam Kass | ♦ | |||||||||
| Season | Episodes | Premiere | Finale | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 13 | January 13, 2009 | March 7, 2009 | |
| 2 | 13 | June 16, 2009 | September 29, 2009 | |
| 3 | 13 | October 13, 2009 | March 9, 2010 | |
| 4 | 13 | April 6, 2010 | July 13, 2010 | |
| 5 | 13 | July 20, 2010 | November 28, 2010 | |
| 6 | 12 | January 4, 2011 | April 26, 2011 | |
| 7 | 10 | May 3, 2011 | July 5, 2011 | |
| 8 | 6 | July 12, 2011 | August 16, 2011 | |
| 9 | 16 | August 30, 2011 | December 13, 2011 | |
| 10 | TBA | December 20, 2011 | TBA | |