What Happened Last Night on “The Taste?”
Here at Cooking Contest Central we love all food competitions, especially the ones we get to watch on TV! Last night was the premier of “The Taste” on ABC. CCC Member Jenn Tidwell has graciously offered to be our official liaison to all things “The Taste.”
Be sure to take a peek at Jenn’s blog, “My Kitchen Kreations to You” She can also be found on Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest!
Check out her recap of the first episode!
“Yes, it’s another reality cooking competition show! Round one auditions premiered Tuesday, January 22 in a 2-hour long episode on ABC. Think “The Voice” though instead of reaching out to music-lovers, “The Taste” was created for lovers of all things food. Hosted by a panel of mentors including, Anthony Bourdain, Nigella Lawson, Ludo Lefebvre and Brian Malarkey, they were served one spoonful, or taste, of dishes created by contestants ranging from professional chefs to home cooks. Not knowing who prepared each tasting the mentors made their decisions, based on taste alone, whether or not a contestant would join their team. There were a few times when more than one mentor gave a contestant the green light which then allowed for them to choose which mentor they wanted to team up with. So not only is it a competition between the contestants, but also between the mentors. There will be 16 lucky contestants chosen, four per team, so these mentors have to go with their intuitions and choose wisely. Each having their own strong personalities the mentors make for an edgy, humorous and quite interesting show. Tune in next week to watch the teams grow and mentoring begin with more tastings to be tasted. While each mentor will be guiding their teammates along in the kitchen they still will be given blind tastings, so the pressure is on with the chance of eliminating one of their own. The contestants have the opportunity at winning $100,000 and a 2013 Ford C-Max Hybrid!”
Thanks Jenn! We can’t wait to hear what you think of next weeks episode…. Stay tuned CCC!
By the way, there is a special recipe contest sponsored by Best Foods/Hellmann’s for The Taste. You could win a trip to LA and a chance to cook on the show with one of the mentors! Check out the “Blue Ribbon Challenge” details here: https://cookingcontestcentral.com/contests/the-blue-ribbon-challenge/
Who is your favorite contestant so far? Which mentor would you like to work with? Chime in below!
I found the whole lamenting by the judges “I shoulda woulda picked you” very confusing
Do you think it is because they all want to appear sympathetic and no one wants to be the “Simon” of the group?
yeah I wasn’t really all that excited to hear there was a new reality cooking show either, especially since Gordon Ramsay isn’t involved in this one. But this morning one of my coworkers at DISH told me The Taste was really entertaining last night. So I think I’ll give it a try when I get home today, and fortunately I have one of DISH’s Hoppers, which means it’ll be waiting for me on my DVR even though I hadn’t known I was going to want to see it. The Hopper has this feature called PrimeTime Anytime that records FOX, NBC, CBS, and of course ABC during primetime every evening, then automatically stores all of those recordings for eight days! I love how it allows me to spontaneously go back and watch basically all of the shows I care about without ever having to think about setting a DVR timer.
Yes,it was confusing since it was supposed to be about the taste,not the cook.Many times the judges liked the taste,but still voted no,then after meeting the creator,wished they had voted yes.
Not very entertaining for me. I love to see how dishes are created and learn what flavor combinations are winners. Maybe future shows will show more technique but last night was just a a blur of faces and tasting spoons.
Lisa and Jean, I agree! It was weird and not especially entertaining. First, they seemed to have mostly professional chefs and very few “home cooks,” which was kind of a bummer. And then the mentors would vote “no” on a particular taste, find out it was a professional chef that prepared it, and then go ON AND ON about how they wish they would have voted Yes and could have them on their team! It was just odd. And yes, Jean, hopefully the future episodes will showcase the cooking and the development of the tastes more. Frankly, I was a little bored. Not a fan of Bourdain anyway–I think he tries too hard for the “shock” factor and it often makes him look fake. And they need to subtitle Ludo a little more. Did anyone else have difficulty understanding him? LOL!
Too funny about the subtitles, Laureen! Ludo judged me in the LG “Taste of Something Special” contest and I had no idea if he liked my dish or not. So, after the feedback, I smiled, nodded and said thank you!! 😉
Laureen, I’m glad you mentioned the subtitles, I thought it was just me!! He was so difficult to understand! Brett, that’s too funny!!!
I watched it in great anticipation but after an hour and 15 minutes of pressing the “No” button so many times I couldn’t take it anymore. It just got boring so I turned it off.
I’m with you all there being more of a focus on who the chef or home cook turned out to be rather than the dish each of them prepared. Who know’s, maybe the mentors themselves are feeling the pressures of being on a new cooking show but with each of their experience in the field you’d think they have it down by now.
And yes, subtitles please when it comes to Ludo!
Also, I would choose Nigella for my mentor as she is a big supporter of the “home cooks”. I also enjoy listening to her accent!
I agree with you all. I will give it another try and see how it goes. I too would pick Nigella 🙂
It was ok. However, looking at the picture above, I think Malarkey really needs wardrobe help! His stylist should be fired, Capri jeans and loafers? Really? 😉
I’ve been obsessed with Nigella for years. So, on that alone I enjoyed the show. I think once they get past the initial picking the chefs stage, they will focus on the food more and showing techniques, etc… I look forward to future episodes 🙂
I didn’t watch it on Tuesday but it was repeated on Saturday evening so I watched some and recorded the rest and watched it yesterday. I found it fun to watch and will try to watch it this week. It will be interesting to see if they eliminate their own cooks/chefs.