''Chefs vs. City'' is an American television show that aired on

Food Network Food Network is an American basic cable channel owned by Television Food Network, G.P., a joint venture and general partnership between Warner Bros. Discovery Networks (which holds a 69% ownership stake of the network) and Nexstar Media Group ...

for two seasons from 2009 to 2010. The show stars chefs Aarón Sanchez and

Chris Cosentino Chris Cosentino is an American celebrity chef and reality television personality known as the winner of '' Top Chef Masters'', a competitor on '' The Next Iron Chef'' and for his appearances on ''Iron Chef America''. He is known for his haute cu ...

, who travel to different cities of the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...

to challenge two local chefs to a variety of food-related challenges. The show was hosted by actor

Ethan Erickson Ethan Skip Erickson (born August 5, 1973) is an American television and film actor and TV host. Education Erickson was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He has a degree in English literature from UC Santa Barbara. Career Erickson once played the ...

Show format

Each episode takes place in a major

city. The show features two teams: two

chefs (Sanchez and Cosentino) and two chefs from the featured city. At the beginning of the show, each contestant receives a

backpack A backpack—also called knapsack, schoolbag, rucksack, rucksac, pack, sackpack, booksack, bookbag or backsack—is, in its simplest frameless form, a fabric sack carried on one's back and secured with two straps that go over the shoulders ...

with certain instruments that they will use during the contest, and a dossier with information on their first stop. Each team is given a Ford Expedition to move around the city as they try to reach each stop ahead of the other team. At each stop, both teams have to complete a certain food-related task before they receive a new dossier and advance to the next contest. Examples of tasks include eating a whole serving of an extremely spicy or very large dish, sampling and separating products, and cooking or prepping dishes. After the final contest, the contestants have to race through a finish line together to win. Of the show's twenty episodes, Chris and Aaron won in 14 of them, and lost in six.

Changes from season 1 to 2

During season 1, the competitors would have to run to the finish line. But, during season 2, they would drive to the finish line and then run. Also in season 2, the directions on the signs at the challenges got shorter. The first five season 2 episodes featured Chris and Aaron against fellow Food Network stars, who acted as the "City" representatives.

Controversy

In 2014, Cosentino gave a talk at the

MAD Symposium The MAD Symposium is an annual symposium held in Copenhagen, Denmark consisting of presentations from chefs, farmers, academics, thinkers, and artists. The event is hosted by MAD Food Organization, which was founded in 2011 by Danish chef René Re ...

about how he regretted participating in the series. Most notably, he had gotten third-degree alkaline burns on his stomach lining as a result of the eating challenges, which he said took him five years to recover from, during which time he had to carefully monitor his diet. He also said that the show made him look "like a bully" when he and Sanchez beat the local chefs, and that the show's eating challenges glamorized overeating.Talk at MAD 4 Symposium
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Season 1

Season 2

References

External links