I think this had already been mentioned before (regarding the chefs already knowing what the secret item was going to be).

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Late last year I appeared on a British food show where various audience members had brought along their own dishes. All illusion of 'reality' was smattered when I was asked by one of the crew "Did you bring that or were you just given it as you walked through the door?".

Aaaah, now I know how they usually work ... ;)

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its not hard to conclude they knew about the secret ingredient since they always seem to have accommodative plating decorations and tools and dont even discuss what has to be cooked

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Before there ever was an Iron Chef America, I read a brief article about the original Japanese Iron Chef (in, say, 2000). It clearly stated that there was a list of four ingredients given to the contestants as possible ingredients for the show. So it's not really something new.
And as a former professional cook (fine dining), I have to say that preparing 4-5 nice-looking, well-balanced dishes, even with two sous-chefs, in an hour, when you have no idea what the main ingredient will be ahead of time, is pretty difficult. At least one or two of those dishes will be so-so, if not outright failures.
The problem is that the show misleads its audience. On the other hand, TV is all about illusion; why should this show be any different? Reality, my eye.

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Somehow after reading that 'exposing article' I don't think of Iron Chef any differently. The food network stated that there was a list. What the list looks like is anyone's guess, but most likely it's a short list of similar possibilities. Something like "Salmon, Grouper, Cod, Tuna: good luck guys".

The OMG surprise that the judging takes 2 hours? No surprise at all, filming something like that always takes a lot longer than it seems on TV, there needs to be a lot of editing to keep it interesting for the modern viewer.

Surprise that "oompa loompas" help with the final serving? None. The chefs make one dish for the cameras, the ones for the judges naturally get to be prepared and served later.

I really don't see the big deal...it's a TV program, if they didn't use cutting and editing and fog and drama it wouldn't be nearly as fun.

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What kind of hack wrote this slop! "Gosh, everything on a TV show isn't on the up and up? I'm crushed!"

Most of the points in his "expose" were included in an "Food Network: Unwrapped" episode about IC, by the way. Perhaps he just watched that and made the whole story up?

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From what I recall on a show about the original Iron Chef, is they are given a short list of 3 possible ingredients.

Not a big scandal.. come on. ALLLLLEEZZ CUISINE!

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Yeah, I'm not surprised either. I've always been a fan of Iron Chef and always thought it was a ruse. I mean, who really believed Kaga was a rich millionaire and had a cooking contest in his basement? It's kind of like the WWF of cooking :)

The only real surprise to me is that a reputable food critic was surprised it was a farce.

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OMG! You mean everything on TV isn't 100% as it seems?!?!?!?! Please, what a stupid article.

I always assumed they knew the ingredient from the start anyway. There's no way they can plan out all those dishes on the spot without knowing what they were getting into. And being horrified that all the chefs weren't there for the selection? C'mon like they're all going to get together early in the morning to stand on a podium and possibly just step right down and go home?

Ridiculous.

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