Kitchen Stadium

Lyrics

Long before reality show cooking competitions were the norm there was Iron Chef: an odd little Food Network import from Japan complete with its own pageantry, its own mythology an on-­‐scene reporter, two colour commentators and a Chairman with a luscious voice and Liberace clothes sensuously biting into a yellow bell pepper at the beginning of each episode as majestic soundtracks from long-­‐forgotten Westerns spooned on their sonic gravitas like so much béchamel. The Iron Chefs were my heroes. I'd hide under the covers and pretend to be them rising up on their platforms amidst billowing smoke into Kitchen Stadium like judges in a Daoist hell: Rokusaburo Michiba, Iron Chef Japanese who solemnly wrote down his planned menus in a flowing hand with an ink-­‐drenched brush. Hiroyuki Sakai, Iron Chef French who I would tell anyone within earshot was known as the "Délacroix of French cuisine" even though I didn't know who Délacroix was and had never eaten French food. Chen Kenichi, Iron Chef Chinese who my Bengali mother would always root for because his food looked the spiciest and Masahiko Kobe, Iron Chef Italian the loser. The judges were just as memorable. Sachiko Kobayashi, singer and supreme diva who wore dresses and neck ruffs half the width of the judging table and once performed a concert standing on the hands of a giant statue of herself. Kazuko Hosoki, a red-­‐lipsticked neocon who happened to be the world's richest fortune teller. But most important of all was Asako Kishi food critic, and terrifying, unsmiling grandmother figure condoner of no bullshit, inevitably giving scores three points lower than everyone else earning her the nickname in the Japanese press of the "East German Judge." My mind, though, always goes back to the deleted scenes from one episode. Battle Chinese Cabbage. The challenger, Cui Yufen, was 57 years old, and used to cook for Chairman Mao one of the few women to ever appear on the show and the only one from China. I remember her third dish being set before the judges almost ludicrously simple-­‐looking Chairman Kaga asking her to describe it and she said through her interpreter, "It's just cabbage and mustard." The judges, skeptical, took their first bite. After a long silence, Asako Kishi, the East German Judge, was the first to speak her voice breaking ever so slightly. "This is the best thing I've ever eaten," she said as she picked up the bowl and raised it to her lips.