Top 10 Behind the Scenes Secrets from Cooking Shows

There’s never a shortage of food on cooking shows and that means lots of leftovers. And with the growing emphasis on curbing food waste, one of the big questions we’ve always had is… what happens to all that food? Well, some of it - the stuff that’s been sitting under hot lights all day and has gone bad - goes in the garbage. But much of the leftover food does go to feed hundreds if not thousands of people. On some shows the crew gets to take home extra food. And on some shows, like “Rachel Ray” and “Guy's Grocery Games,” the leftovers get donated to local charities and food pantries. Triple G even provides the scraps from competitions to farms as feed for animals.

One of the key elements of any cooking competition show is the judging. We love to watch them cook, but we also want to see who wins - and that decision is made by the judges. And while it appears to take only a few minutes - and maybe a commercial break - for them to come to their decision, the truth is quite different. And it can vary greatly by show as well. When it comes to “Chopped” and “Holiday Baking Championship” the back and forth between the judges can take anywhere from 15 to about 45 minutes. And while that might seem long, it’s nothing compared to “Top Chef” judging tables, which can last up to 8 hours.

As many of us home chefs know, sometimes, when preparing a meal it’s pre-heating the oven and boiling the water that takes the most time. Now imagine you’re on “Chopped” and you only have 30 minutes to complete a dish. You don’t have time to waste waiting for ovens to get warm and water to boil. And thankfully you don’t have to, because before the start of each round the ovens are already heated up to 350 degrees and there’s a pot of boiling water on your stove ready to go. It’s the least they can do given some of the crazy mystery basket ingredients they throw at the contestants.

You know how some people get really angry when they see Christmas lights and decorations going up at the beginning of November? Well, how do you think those folks would feel about seeing a Christmas baking competition show being filmed in April? Watching all of the various seasonal baking competitions on the Food Network always gets us even more in the spirit of whatever holiday they’re celebrating. However, for those filming the shows, the actual holiday they’re honoring can be up to 3 to 8 months away when they film the show. The lengthy post-production involved in creating a complete series of episodes from all the raw footage requires that kind of lead time.

Have you ever wondered how the food stays warm between the time the contestants finish cooking it and when the judges finally taste it? Well, the answer is it doesn’t. By the time you see the judges on “Chopped” trying the dish and giving the contestants feedback, the food on their plates is often cold. What we don’t see though is the judges tasting the food before that. To quote “Chopped” host Ted Allen, “the minute we cut after a cooking round, the judges get up from the chopping block, and they go over to the stations and they taste things that are hot.” On “MasterChef” shows the judges will also taste the food right when finished or even while the contestants are still cooking.

While it sucks to be the first contestant to be eliminated from any competition show, we hope that cooking show contestants can find some comfort in the fact that it truly is an accomplishment just making it on the show. Take “The Great British Bake Off” for example. Faenia Moore works on the show and has a hand in casting the dozen or so bakers that make it to the iconic tent to compete. And to find those 12 or so bakers, Moore has said that they interview “400 to 500” people. So even the first one off the show made it farther than hundreds of other amateur bakers.

It’s impossible to scroll through Facebook or Instagram without coming across pictures of food. But annoying as it is to see the person next to you at brunch taking model shots of their avocado toast, these posts can help get someone on “Guy’s Grocery Games.” No, not the soccer mom at the other table, but the chef of the restaurant you’re at. It turns out that Guy Fieri and his team are perusers of food on social media and have used it to cast the show. As Memphis chef Keith Clinton told the Memphis Flyer, “They just called the restaurant and said, ‘I see you’re doing some interesting things on Instagram and Facebook. We’re just wondering who’s the chef there and what’s going on?”

Have you ever watched “Hell’s Kitchen” and wondered why nobody has ever physically attacked Gordon Ramsay given how abrasive and verbally abusive he can be? Well, we’re thinking there are at least a couple very big reasons…. His bodyguards. According to Season 6 contestant Robert Hesse, Ramsay “has a few Suge Knight-looking [guys] waiting to break some necks.” These guys usually remain off camera. However, if you remember the episode with the guy who asked Ramsay to step outside, insulted him, and challenged him to fight - those two guys that showed up real quick… those were the bodyguards.

A lot of the celebrity chefs who have their own cooking shows probably do have very nice kitchens. However, it’s also probable that their kitchen isn’t the one they film their show in. For the most part cooking show kitchens are often set up on sound stages and studios. For example, "Guy's Big Bite" and "30 Minute Meals" are both filmed in the same studio in New York City. In fact it was the same space where “Iron Chef America” filmed as well. Now, there are exceptions to this rule, as the Barefoot Contessa herself, Ina Garten initially filmed her show in her home kitchen. However, she eventually moved out of there and into a barn on her property that she converted into a studio kitchen.

Being a contestant on “Hell’s Kitchen” means getting yelled at by Gordon Ramsay. But if you win, it also means a job as a head or executive chef at one of his restaurants and a $250,000 cash prize. And when there’s that kind of money on the line there are usually lawyers right there making sure it’s a fair line for everybody. As season 10 winner Chef Christina Wilson told Mashed, “there's a lawyer on set, from Fox, every time that we're recording, anytime there's a challenge or a dinner service. There's no funny business. It's a cash prize… It has to be fair.”