Chef Zakarian sometimes needs an iron stomach

Can you imagine at 6am trying to digest poorly cooked chicken feet?

That’s one of the hazards of the job when you’re a judge on the Food Network’s most popular show Chopped.

Chef Geoffrey Zakarian not only has to imagine it, he’s had to try and eat some vary inedible things since he’s been a judge on the show.

The chef recently spoke to a packed audience on the Norwegian Breakaway about his experiences on the show as well as what it was like to compete on the Next Iron Chef. 

He said: “Chopped is like a little engine that could. We started in 2007 with three folding chairs in a kitchen. It was from a similar show in London called Ready, Steady, Cook.” 

The show’s premise is to bring in four chefs and give them a basket of four food items, which they don’t know what they are until the baskets are opened, then give them 20 minutes to make an appetizer. 

The judges taste the meals and one chef is ‘chopped’ or eliminated from the show. The three remaining competitors are then given a new basket of four food items with one being chopped after the next round. The final round is dessert and the chef left standing wins $10,000.

Chef Zakarian said: “It’s one of the toughest challenges out there.”

He said some great chefs end up getting cut in the first round “because it’s that hard.

“It’s been an incredible show. It’s the most successful show that TV Food Network has ever done.”

Chef Zakarian said like the contestants, the judges don’t know what’s in the basket of ingredients.

“I don’t have anything to do with the ingredients. I don’t know what they are. When I see them I am just as shocked as the chefs are. Sometimes I’m more shocked as I know they are not going to know how to cook that.

“When you get chicken feet as an ingredient at six o’clock in the morning — that’s when we start filming — I know this is not going to be a good day.

He said it happens all the time that something is made that’s inedible.

“We eat it and it’s inedible and we tell them it’s not right. We’re not there to make them feel bad. It’s not that kind of show. We’re there to see how skilful they are in doing a good job in making something that they’ve never seen into something edible and maybe really good.

“Once you shoot them, you don’t step on them. There’s no reason to.”

Last year he also successfully competed on The Next Iron Chef.

Chef Zakarian said: “The Next Iron Chef was without question the most difficult thing I’ve had to do. That was 12 weeks of filming and we’re sequestered like a jury. We’re not allowed to talk, can’t use phones, you can’t do anything. It’s really hard. 

“I went up against 10 amazing chefs. Any one of those people could have been an Iron Chef and I say that in all humility. They are incredible chefs.”

He said his strategy was to just focus on the current challenge and make it past the cut. 

“I’m a golfer so to me it’s like a game of golf. Each battle was a hole. If you get a bogey and don’t win, you’ve got to shake it off. You’ve got to stay focused and think about yourself. 

“The biggest competition in every single battle was myself. You can’t think about what everyone else is doing. I didn’t care if it was Alex (Guarnaschelli) or Marcus (Samuelsson) or anybody because anybody can beat anybody any day. 

“If you weren’t sharp enough that one day, then you could have gone home.The combination of talent that Elizabeth (Falkner) and Michael Chiarello is really something. They really have it all.”