- Contestants are not chefs.
- Contestants are low-to-mid level income parents.
- A cupboard filled with a small amount of random ingredients found at a local grocery store. NO exotic ingredients. NO pricey ingredients.
- Contestants must also incorporate randomly selected ‘leftovers’ from a pre-cooked meal into their dish.
- The judges are kids ranging in age from 10-18. NO celebrity judges. NO chef judges.
- First prize is free groceries for a year.
This sounds like a less interesting version of chopped.
Kids in general fucking suck at determining good food… I don’t know many people who’d want to watch who can make the best chicken nuggets or french fries.
Put judges on the panel who can at least determine a well balanced/cooked meal from a crappy one. Doesn’t have to be a professional chef, just someone with some level of experience with cooking… Home cooks, line cooks, etc. Not some 14 year old who thinks stouffers French bread pizza is a meal. That opinion is null and void in the world of cooking.
I’m going to assume that you don’t have kids. Parents will understand where I’m coming from, I think.
All kids including my own match exactly what was said: they’re Absolutely shitty judges (all on the younger end of your range and even below though! That might influence this quite a bit but “this taste bad, I don’t like it” because of a bad night is not shocking, about a food favorite.
It’s about consistency that such a show would need and that’s tough with kids to get - it’s more gambling if you have no idea what your benchmark will be.
Alternatively you could lean fully into it and the contestants could have a brief interview with each judge before each round.
Now that I think about I like your idea better and better, just needs a few details to lean into the chaos kids would bring!
Talk about a 180 … And I’m supposed to be the “stable adult”.