50 Fun Facts About Cooking Shows

The Great British Bake Off is renamed Baking Show in America because which company owns the Bake-Off trademark?

Pillsbury first ran its own Bake-Off recipe contest in 1949 at New York's Waldorf-Astoria, so the British series airs in the US and Canada as The Great British Baking Show.

Which host of 30 Minute Meals is credited with coining EVOO, an abbreviation later added to an Oxford dictionary?

Rachael Ray used EVOO as her shorthand for extra-virgin olive oil so often that the Oxford American College Dictionary added the term in 2007 and credited her.

Which American chef offended Masaharu Morimoto by standing on his cutting board after an Iron Chef battle in New York?

Bobby Flay climbed onto his board and raised his arms when the hour ended; Morimoto, who holds knives and boards sacred, took offence and said Flay was not a chef.

Which Barefoot Contessa host wrote nuclear energy budget papers at the White House before buying a specialty food shop?

Ina Garten quit her government job in 1978 after spotting an ad for a tiny Long Island food store called the Barefoot Contessa, and kept the name for her books and show.

Which rapper joined Martha Stewart to host a VH1 dinner-party cooking show after the two bonded at a celebrity roast?

Snoop Dogg sat next to Stewart through the seven-hour taping of Justin Bieber's 2015 roast, and the pair got on so well that VH1 gave them a potluck show the next year.

Ted Allen, the longtime host of Chopped, first found fame as the food and wine expert on which makeover series?

Queer Eye for the Straight Guy made Allen one of its Fab Five in 2003, and he left Bravo in 2008 when Food Network offered him the Chopped job.

Which cookbook author taught Americans French cuisine on The French Chef, a weekly series on Boston's WGBH from 1963?

Julia Child got the series after viewers loved watching her cook an omelette on a WGBH book-review programme; three trial episodes aired in summer 1962 before the weekly run.

Which YouTube talk show has Sean Evans interview celebrities over a platter of increasingly spicy chicken wings?

Hot Ones gives each guest ten wings, every one dressed in a fiercer sauce than the last, and has grown into a brand of bottled sauces and frozen wings.

Which game show has teams answer trivia questions before a timed dash to gather groceries from store aisles?

Supermarket Sweep first ran on ABC from 1965 to 1967, when it was broadcast from real Food Fair stores, mostly around New York City.

Which chef, once a trialist with Rangers football club, splits Hell's Kitchen contestants into red and blue teams?

Gordon Ramsay had a trial in 1984 with Rangers, the club he supported as a boy, but a serious knee injury ended his football hopes and sent him toward the kitchen.

Which author and former model hosted Bravo's Top Chef from season two until she stepped down in 2023?

Padma Lakshmi replaced first-season host Katie Lee and stayed through season 20, picking up several Emmy nominations for hosting along the way.

Emeril Lagasse, born in Massachusetts, made his name as executive chef of Commander's Palace in which Southern city?

New Orleans gave Lagasse his break in 1982, when he succeeded the celebrated Paul Prudhomme in the Commander's Palace kitchen, long before television made him a star.

The cooking contest MasterChef, created by film director Franc Roddam, first aired in 1990 in which country?

United Kingdom viewers saw MasterChef first: its BBC commissioner had already made Masterteam and worked on Mastermind, so the name simply continued the run.

Which creator and host of Good Eats also served as the main commentator on Iron Chef America?

Alton Brown first aired his Good Eats pilot in 1998 on a Chicago public television station, before Food Network picked the show up for a run of sixteen seasons.

Which Travel Channel series sent Adam Richman to a different American city to face a restaurant's eating challenge?

Man v. Food ran for four seasons with Richman, and when Travel Channel revived it in 2017 a new host, Casey Webb, took on the giant plates.

Which actor, who co-directed the restaurant film Big Night, explored regional cooking in CNN's Searching for Italy?

Stanley Tucci has credited another CNN series, Anthony Bourdain's Parts Unknown, as an influence on his own journey through Italian kitchens.

Which Netflix baking contest, hosted by Mikey Day, asks judges to spot the everyday object that is an edible fake?

Is It Cake? turned a viral internet challenge, spread on YouTube and TikTok, into a game show where bakers win by fooling celebrity judges.

Which comedian co-hosts Netflix's Nailed It!, where amateur bakers with poor skills try to copy elaborate confections?

Nicole Byer became the first Black woman nominated for the Emmy for outstanding host of a reality or competition programme, for a show built on failed bakes.

TLC's Cake Boss follows Buddy Valastro and his siblings at Carlo's Bake Shop in which New Jersey city?

Hoboken drew so many extra visitors because of the series that the Hudson Reporter gave Valastro an honourable mention among the county's most influential people.

On Bravo's Top Chef, what name is given to the opening round whose winner usually earns immunity from elimination?

Quickfire Challenge tasks are not always plated dishes: some have been relay races through kitchen prep, and others blind taste-testing contests.

Which country singer, married to Garth Brooks, began hosting a Southern cooking show on Food Network in 2012?

Trisha Yearwood named the series Trisha's Southern Kitchen, and it went on to win a Daytime Emmy Award.

Which pop star learned to cook from professional chefs appearing remotely in an HBO Max series filmed in her home?

Selena Gomez made Selena + Chef during the COVID-19 pandemic, with no crew members allowed in her kitchen, and later brought it back as holiday specials.

Phil Rosenthal, the travelling host of Netflix's Somebody Feed Phil, created which long-running sitcom?

Everybody Loves Raymond ran from 1996 to 2005, and its stars Ray Romano and Brad Garrett have been among the guests Rosenthal phones during the food series.

Netflix's Culinary Class Wars pits unknown Black Spoon cooks against veteran White Spoon chefs in which country?

South Korea's hit made its eighty unknown challengers cook under aliases, while the twenty established stars competed under their real names.

Which bestselling 2000 memoir of restaurant life launched chef Anthony Bourdain toward a career as a travel host?

Kitchen Confidential expanded a 1999 New Yorker article by Bourdain, bluntly titled Don't Eat Before Reading This.

On Cutthroat Kitchen, each chef starts with $25,000 to spend at auctions that mostly sell what?

Sabotages for rivals might swap a chef's equipment or restrict how they can move, and the last cook standing keeps only the money left unspent.

Which actor-director presents Netflix's The Chef Show with Roy Choi, who trained him for his 2014 film Chef?

Jon Favreau learned his kitchen skills from Choi to make the film, and the pair reunited in 2019 to cook for and interview their guests.

Ree Drummond, Food Network's Pioneer Woman, lives on a working cattle ranch near Pawhuska in which state?

Oklahoma ranch life was the subject of Drummond's blog, The Pioneer Woman, and its success led the network to give her a show of the same name in 2011.

Paula Deen, who began with a lunch-delivery business called The Bag Lady, opened The Lady & Sons in which Georgia city?

Savannah office workers were Deen's first customers: her two sons delivered the bagged lunches before the family opened its restaurant downtown in 1996.

Which Food Network series followed pastry chef Duff Goldman and his crew at their custom bakery in Baltimore?

Ace of Cakes showed Goldman's shop, Charm City Cakes, building edible sculptures; one, a model of the Hubble Space Telescope, went on display at a NASA centre.

Which martial-arts actor plays Iron Chef America's Chairman, billed as the nephew of Chairman Kaga from Iron Chef?

Mark Dacascos, also known as the villain Wo Fat on Hawaii Five-0, repeated his Chairman role for the Australian and Mexican versions of the contest.

Which Chicago chef, later owner of Girl and the Goat, became the first woman to win Top Chef?

Stephanie Izard took the title in the fourth season, and her Chicago restaurant was later named America's best new restaurant by Saveur magazine.

Which host of Secrets of a Restaurant Chef coached hopeless recruits on Worst Cooks in America from its 2010 launch?

Anne Burrell launched the series alongside chef Beau MacMillan, having earlier appeared as one of Mario Batali's sous chefs on Iron Chef America.

Which chef, who began cooking in Britain's Royal Navy, gives failing eateries a makeover on Restaurant: Impossible?

Robert Irvine enlisted at fifteen and served aboard the Royal Yacht Britannia, years before Food Network cast him in Dinner: Impossible and its rescue-show successor.

Netflix's Chef's Table was created by David Gelb as a follow-up to which earlier documentary of his?

Jiro Dreams of Sushi, Gelb's 2011 film, follows Jiro Ono, then 85 years old and the owner of a restaurant holding three Michelin stars.

Which Chez Panisse alumna visits Italy and Mexico in Netflix's Salt Fat Acid Heat, based on her own cookbook?

Samin Nosrat first ate at Chez Panisse as a college sophomore in 2000 and immediately applied for a job there clearing tables.

Which founder of the Momofuku restaurant group hosts Netflix's Ugly Delicious, questioning ideas of authentic cooking?

David Chang won two Michelin stars for Momofuku Ko in 2009, yet his series gives whole episodes to pizza, tacos and fried chicken.

Which cooking show opened with host Graham Kerr running in and leaping over a dining chair?

The Galloping Gourmet owed its famous entrance to Kerr's wife Treena, who produced the series and came up with the stunt.

Which chef made television history in 2005 as the first woman named an Iron Chef on Iron Chef America?

Cat Cora joined an otherwise all-male line-up for the first season and stayed with the series for ten seasons.

Which co-founder of New York's Gramercy Tavern was named head judge when Bravo launched Top Chef in 2006?

Tom Colicchio also won an Emmy in 2010 as an executive producer of the series he judges, and founded the Craft restaurants in New York and Los Angeles.

Which Great British Bake Off judge was the only original star to stay when Bake Off changed broadcasters in 2017?

Paul Hollywood, who learned his trade in his father's bakery in York, stayed on after fellow judge Mary Berry and both presenters chose to leave.

The Great British Bake Off places its bakers' workstations inside what kind of structure, set up in scenic gardens?

A marquee tent hung with bunting is meant to recall an English village fête; in the first series the whole production moved from town to town each week.

The cooking contest Iron Chef, with its flamboyant Chairman Kaga and Kitchen Stadium, was produced in which country?

Japan's Fuji Television made the series, whose original title translates literally as Iron People of Cooking.

Guy Fieri earned his first television series by winning the second season of which talent search?

The Next Food Network Star handed Fieri a six-episode commitment for a show of his own, and Guy's Big Bite premiered two months after his 2006 win.

At the start of each Chopped round, the chefs receive four surprise ingredients packed inside what?

A basket hides the four ingredients, and every one must be used; one appetizer round offered watermelon, canned sardines, pepper jack cheese and zucchini.

Which sitcom actress hosted Kids Baking Championship alongside Duff Goldman for its first twelve seasons?

Valerie Bertinelli, who grew up on screen in One Day at a Time, also won two Daytime Emmys for her own Food Network series, Valerie's Home Cooking.

Which restaurateur, raised in his parents' Manhattan restaurant Felidia, became a judge on the American MasterChef?

Joe Bastianich earned a finance degree at Boston College before opening the restaurant Becco in 1993 with his mother, the television cook Lidia.

Which University of Houston writing graduate won the American MasterChef in 2012 as its first blind contestant?

Christine Ha began losing her sight in 2004 and was almost completely blind by 2007; she later opened a Houston gastropub named The Blind Goat.

How did the BBC's Two Fat Ladies, Jennifer Paterson and Clarissa Dickson Wright, travel to each cooking location?

They went by motorbike and sidecar: Paterson drove a Triumph Thunderbird while Dickson Wright rode alongside, and the number plate ended in TFL for the title.

Which BBC daytime game show split two celebrity chefs into red tomato and green pepper teams?

Ready Steady Cook handed each chef a bag of ingredients bought by a member of the public, usually on a budget of just five pounds.