Are You Ready for a Throwdown?

These days, nearly everybody knows chef and restaurant owner Bobby Flay.

The Food Network has made changes in its approach recently. Star chefs Emeril Lagasse and Mario Batali have made way for wildly popular and much-imitated cooks Rachael Ray and Paula Deen. Straight cooking shows have had to cede pride of place to competitions, like Iron Chef America and Food Network Challenge, and semi-reality shows, such as Ace of Cakes and Dinner Impossible , not to mention The Chef Jeff Project, in which an ex-con turned star chef takes a half dozen street kids and tries to turn them into food professionals . In addition, much more attention is given to lifestyle shows and travel shows, such as Rachael's Vacation and Road Tasted With the Neelys.

Mario Batali's new food program, Spain . . . On the Road Again, itself a kind of "travel" show, is being broadcast in prime time on public television, which has also welcomed Chinese-American chef Ming Tsai, once a Food Network regular. According to Batali, “They [the Food Network] don’t need me. They have decided they are mass market and they are going after the Wal-Mart crowd,” which he said was “a smart business decision. So they don’t need someone who uses polysyllabic words from other languages.” Frankly, I agree with him. Food Network made a conscious decision to go mass market, which basically involves a certain amount of "dumbing down" as well as a focus on entertainment rather than instruction. This means that I watch fewer Food Network shows, but I confess that I still do have a favorite, that strange mixture of reality TV and cooking competition called Throwdown With Bobby Flay.

For the less hip among us, a throw down is a fight or a street fight. If someone disses you, you have to throw down. Get it? In the Food Network vocabulary, a throwdown has become a challenge to a competition. Star chef Bobby Flay goes to the home territory of a food professional and challenges him or her to a competition cooking their signature dish. Sometimes this is something Flay is also expert at, such as grilling, and sometimes it's something out of his normal repertoire, such as wedding cake or soft pretzels. No matter, Flay and the expert do battle before an audience and the results are judged. Every week, someone wins and someone loses.

The major catch is that, while Bobby Flay knows what is going on from the beginning, the other cook is caught by surprise. The featured food professionals think that they are going to appear on a segment of a Food Network series. They are filmed talking about their business and their food, then some sort of party is given, at which the professionals are supposed to give a demonstration of their signature dish. When the party has started, Bobby Flay shows up and issues his challenge, and the throwdown begins. In the beginning, the food professionals were genuinely shocked to find themselves nose to nose with Bobby Flay. Often the audience recognized the famous chef even before the food professional did. Now it's harder to catch the contestants by surprise, but even so, they have to go head to head with Bobby Flay on television.

Most of the food professionals, once they have gotten over their surprise, take the challenge in stride. After all, they are on their home territory cooking their signature dish, and they're going to appear on a nationally broadcast television show. If they win, they get bragging rights and great free publicity, and even if they lose, they still get great publicity, as well as the sympathy vote for having been ganged up on by the Food Network. It's really hard to go wrong, although it's also clear that none of them wants to lose. In one show, Bobby Flay cooks eggplant parmesan on Arthur Avenue in the Bronx, in the heart of Little Italy. The cook he has challenged says, "What? An Irish guy is going to beat me making eggplant parmigiana? Forget about it!"

However, occasionally the food professional is not only shocked but displeased. Sometimes this is reflected in a cool politeness, such as the episode about Buffalo chicken wings or the one about seafood gumbo, but one cook, New York City doughnut expert Mark Isreal, basically threw a hissy fit on television, even though he won the challenge. This behavior did not get him much sympathy on the blogs, where the nicest thing said about him was that he was a "donkey." Considering that Bobby Flay himself does not inspire much affection from the foodie bloggers, the Mark Isreal episode sent Flay's stock up with some of his most persistent critics.

Bobby Flay's record in the Throwdown challenges is 16 wins, 1 tie, and 34 losses. Given some of the shows I have seen, such as the one about macaroni and cheese, or the coconut cake episode, Bobby won a few he should have lost. However, he is always extremely polite and respectful with the other chef, win or lose, and he absorbs a lot of good natured ribbing, as well as the odd insult. When Mark Isreal tried Bobby Flay's doughnut, he barely took one bite and dismissed it: "Doughy." He also refused to shake Flay's hand. Yes, he was indeed a donkey. Honestly, I think one reason I like the show is because it's short and Bobby Flay gets heckled so much by the other chefs. When he challenged her to a chicken-fried steak throwdown, fellow Food Network star Paula Deen told him she was going to "kick his butt," then proceeded to do so. He just smiled. That has to be worth something. It's fun, and I like it.