Food Theory: Will Masterchef Gordon Ramsay FAIL?

what are you a relatively new youtube channel dedicated to theorizing about food jeff what like we've already explored the game in film verticals so i thought this would be a fun new arena to nerd out about what i feel like that's a pretty effective explanation stop looking at me like i'm some sort of idiot sandwich hello internet welcome to food theory where the secret ingredient is and has always been inside you all along just kidding you idiot sandwiches today we're digging into the long-standing feud between two tough talk and celebrity chefs in the blue corner we have bobby flay food network mega host and iron chef bad boy the final seconds tick down that's it they're done the greatest battle of iron chef history the rock crab he's not a chef you know after finishing he stood up on the cutting board that's not right cutting boards and knives are sacred to us and in the red corner is gordon ramsay host of many many many reality cooking shows and prime candidate for anger management class where's the lamb sauce for the better part of a decade ramsay and flea have been treating insults challenging one another to a head-to-head iron chef style cooking contest it all began when gordon ramsay made this comment in an interview with min's journal quote i laugh when they say let's see if he's a real chef let's get him up against bobby flay on iron chef i'm like do me a favor come on i've forgotten more than he's known the next day bobby flay responded to gordon on twitter quote disappointed but noted let's settle this like men in the kitchen no words just knives show up or shut up and ramsay eventually did show up at bobby flay's mesa grill in las vegas and flay wasn't there when he's in new york he's what we should be in new york i believe we're having a cook-off at 11 30. bobby's not here since 2013 the two chefs have been going back and forth in this fashion like two middle-aged hype beasts and yet they still haven't managed to agree on a time and place naturally bobby flay blames it on ramsay and ramsay blames it on flay he keeps on refusing to go up against me you may not have heard of him but his name is bobby flay meanwhile flay claims to be interested in a pay-per-view event saying quote i've been hoping it would happen outside of caesar's palace like the old school heavyweight fights and that quote right there is very telling to me because after seven years of dangling this match up in front of their fans it's beyond obvious that this whole will they won't they song and dance is straight out of the pay-per-view event handbook that boxers have been using since the dawn of time sign the contract big boy sign the contract has he signed a contract yet absolutely not dana if you're watching grow up sign a contract to fight me dad now bobby sign the contract so what ramsay and flair doing is typical pre-fight chatter for any level of boxing and i do mean any level ksi sign the contract i wouldn't want to fight me either so what's a youtuber like me who really really really wants this fight to happen to do should i make a video to add to the hype or should i make a video to end the hype because if you ask me it's time to poke the bear and see if we just can't make this ramsay vs flay cook-off happen already now the way i see it prize fighting problems require prize-fighting solutions which is why today i'm going to do what they did in the 28th best boxing movie ever made rocky balboa and carry out a ramsay versus flay simulation computer says rocky balboa would be triumphant it brought rocky and mason dixon to the ring so i figure it's worth a shot so if ramsay or flay don't like the results of our little simulation here today well you know what they have to do sign the contract big boy sign the contract so in an iron chef style cook-off which of these two chefs would win it's not a simple question to answer because we're not just determining who's the better chef we're determining who would win an iron chef-esque competition show that tests not only chefing abilities but also a litany of other competition skills like strategy and improvisation because remember the hook of iron chef is that a secret ingredient gets sprung on the contestants at the top of the episode at which point both chefs are working against the clock to create a multi-course meal that spotlights said ingredient almonds so in order to dominate on iron chef you have to overcome in-game obstacles that you simply wouldn't encounter in an actual kitchen if chef credentials were all that mattered we'd need look no further than michelin stars easily the most renowned restaurant rating system in the world earning even a single michelin star could be a career defining event for a chef because it takes a remarkable amount of culinary mastery for a restaurant earn even one michelin star let alone the highest possible three stars there is an estimated 15 million restaurants in the world and just 137 of them hold three stars right now and not only that but the list of michelin star restaurants is ever changing so you have to stay on top of your game year in and year out if you wish to keep your michelin stars as chefs both ramsay and flay have earned michelin stars but this is no neck and neck horse race my friends gordon ramsay's restaurants have accumulated 16 michelin stars in all currently holding seven bobby flay has earned one and currently holds zero so it's safe to say that ramsay has been remarkably successful at balancing his career as both a celebrity as well as a critically acclaimed chef and that's honestly really impressive because most chefs have to pick one or the other just ask guy fieri isn't that wonderful yeah oh my god similarly there's the matter of training after all an iron chef style competition is bound to test a chef's ingenuity and breadth of cultural knowledge so whose culinary background is more robust flay or ramsay well bobby flay got his first restaurant gig as a teenager through his father who was a partner at the joe allen restaurant in manhattan flay impressed the restaurant's owner so much that he paid bobby's tuition to the then new french culinary institute in new york city meanwhile gordon ramsay studied french cuisine in you know france where he worked with michelin-starred chefs geesavoir and joel robichol ramsay then studied italian cuisine in the mediterranean meanwhile back in new york bobby flay left the restaurant industry for a period of time to work on the floor of the american stock exchange then took a position as a chef working for famed restaurateur jonathan waxman at budden jams where flay became an expert in southwestern and cajun cuisine as for ramsay he moved back to london and worked at numerous michelin-starred restaurants in a variety of roles working closely with the famed michelin-starred chef marco pierre white so flay's training is nothing to sneeze at but it just doesn't stack up to the worldly michelin star-infused training that gordon ramsay enjoyed this round has to go to ramsay as well so right now it might feel like we're piling on old bobby flay it's true he doesn't have the pedigree or critical acclaim of gordon ramsay but remember that's not what we're here deciding today we're here to decide which chef would win head to head in a competition-style tv show and bobby flay has more high-level experience as a cooking contestant than pretty much anyone else on the planet simply put competition cooking shows are what bobby flay does at this stage in his career bobby flay doesn't need to be putting himself out there as a competitor risking defeat subjecting himself to criticism in front of millions of people and yet he competed on iron chef america for 12 seasons long after he had it made as a multi-millionaire restaurant owner food author and food network host 20 years after climbing onto his cutting board on iron chef bobby flay has competed in and won more episodes of iron chef america than anyone else by far to clarify flay only holds those records for iron chef america by the way not the entire iron chef franchise there are some absolute beasts on the og japanese show like chef hiroyuki sakai and chef chen kenichi with more appearances and wins than flake i love those guys by the way i grew up watching iron chef japan oh it's so good hiroyuki sakai is like my culinary hero anyway when it comes to experience as both a competitor and a host of competition cooking shows few can match flay's career of course gordon ramsay isn't exactly a stranger to cooking competition formats he hosts a whole slew of them but you see gordon ramsay merely adopted the culinary competition format bobby's career was born in it molded by it bobby flay didn't see the glimmer of a michelin star until he was already a man by then it was nothing to him but blinding so it basically boils down to this right ramsay is the culinary expert flay is the competition expert so where does that leave us which skill set is more valuable in an iron chef style cooking competition well here's the twist my friends i'd love to stand here and tell you that iron chef is a true test of a chef's on-the-fly ingenuity and spur-of-the-moment creativity i would love to tell you that the contestants have no clue what the secret ingredient is gonna be but as is often the case with so-called reality television it's more staged than you might think in 2008 the show nightline took a look behind the iron chef curtain and uncovered this about the secret ingredient reveals on iron chef america quote it turns out the chefs do know in advance kind of before the show they're told the secret ingredient could be one of three items from a production standpoint this is done because the show has to stock each competitor's kitchen with the correct ingredients prior to taping so not only do the chefs have plenty of time to practice and tweak their dishes ahead of time but they can also guess exactly what the secret ingredient is gonna be the moment they arrive on set based on what ingredients are waiting for them in the kitchen so if improvisation is no longer a factor here it really seems to take away the edge that bobby flay had going for him after all if you take away the invent a new recipe on the fly aspect of the show it really just becomes a show that's testing exactly what it means to be a chef can you familiarize yourself with an ingredient in the comfort of your home long before any cameras start to roll can you deal with the pressure once the cameras are on can you effectively lead a team of cooks with a limited amount of time i mean these don't sound like the rules to a show called iron chef they sound like the rules to a show called actually running a restaurant so in light of the fact that iron chef is a weirdly accurate test of what it means to be a chef and in light of the fact that the show is judged by knowledgeable food critics it seems fair to assume the man regarded by most critics to be the better chef is the one who would win a competition gordon ramsay now this isn't to say that flay has no chance at all after all we're going heavy on the boxing analogies this episode and a given contestant always has a puncher's chance if the secret ingredient winds up lending itself to southwestern or cajun cuisine for instance then bobby flay is obviously at an advantage because that's his specialty but we have to play the odds here gordon ramsay has more areas of expertise and has proven himself to be favored by food critics the computer says gordon ramsay would be triumphant i imagine bobby flay isn't going gonna like hearing this and you know what i'm glad because that's the point of all of this to annoy him to nod him so much that he steps up and signs the contract frankly i hope this episode makes gordon ramsay angry too cause let's face it it's super entertaining to watch him get mad always been a dream of mine to have him scream an insult in my face something fancy maybe just something like this grostada is so half-baked it could be one of your theory episodes i don't know heck i'd settle for a simple donkey you dunk it you donkey donkey so what do you say chefs can we finally get this cook off on the books because after seven years it's high time we but hey that's just a theory a food theory thanks for watching internet don't forget to hit that subscribe button unless of course you're an idiot sandwich that is now that i think about it what is an idiot sandwich exactly oh man if only there was an episode of food theory that explained what is and is not considered a sandwich oh wait there is that episode exists it was last week's episode and it's right there for you to click on so do it you will be shocked because by some definitions a chicken wing is legally a sandwich so do it click on it now you donkey my accent just doesn't cut it [Music]

Channel: The Food Theorists

Views: 1,531,318

Rating: 4.9543419 out of 5

Keywords: gordon ramsay, bobby flay, masterchef, iron chef, beat bobby flay, food network, food network recipe, kitchen nightmares, hell's kitchen, recipe, food, food myth, food myths, recipes, rosanna pansino, nerdy nummies, dessert, food science, without a recipe, food theorists, food theory, game theory, game theorists, film theory, film theorists, matpat, matpat theory, matpat new channel

Id: tiyJzEegNDI

Length: 11min 59sec (719 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 06 2020