Vegetarian Chef Competes on Iron Chef America

Food competition television shows are my favorite guilty pleasure. I can't really explain why, since I can eat almost nothing served on them; the shows feature one meat dish after the next. But yesterday at the gym, I became especially aggravated when I watched one contestant serve foie gras, which is one of the cruelest dishes out there. Foie gras is made by force feeding ducks and geese to produce a diseased fatty liver.

"Ugh," I said to my friend on the elliptical next to me. "Why do they have to serve that?"

Apparently, The Food Network realizes that there are people who love their shows but don't love meat. They aired their first vegetarian challenge on Iron Chef America earlier this week. The episode featured Iron Chef Masaharu Morimoto against Amanda Cohen, vegetarian chef of DirtCandy restaurant in New York City. 

In this particular cooking competition show, each chef has to come up with a three course meal featuring a secret ingredient in each dish. For the vegetarian competition, the secret ingredient was broccoli. This ingredient should be no problem for Cohen, because, as she asks on her restaurant's website, "What is Dirt Candy? Vegetables of course!"

Both chefs prepared an entirely vegetarian meal, and dessert proved to be interesting. Masaharu Morimoto concocted a shaved broccoli ice with broccoli syrup, served next to a waffle cone while Amanda Cohen served a broccoli ice-cream with corn brittle and carrot caramel sauce.

To be fair to other television networks, this is not the first vegetarian cooking competition. Last year on Bravo, Natalie Portman appeared as a guest judge on Top Chef: Las Vegas and the chefs were asked to prepare a vegetarian meal for her and her friends. Portman has since gone vegan, after reading Jonathan Safran Foer's Eating Animals.

And, also on Bravo, Zooey Deschanel presented quite the challenge last year on Top Chef Masters, asking the chefs to prepare a vegan, gluten-free, soy-free meal. Sadly, Deschanel has since given up veganism, stating that it was too difficult to do because of her food allergies.

I would tell you who won the Iron Chef America vegetarian challenge, (watch it here) but I'm keeping myself in suspense until I catch a repeat of the show during my next workout. And this time, I'll watch guilt free.

Photo Credit: Karen Horton