The Great Soul Food Cook-Off

The show is great and contestants are fun to watch. Now for the judges...I could overlook how annoying their comments were, up until the grandma show. How in the heck are you going to pair these chefs with these grandmas you picked and then kick someone off the show for listening to them. It would have been disrespectful not to listen to the grandmas. This was horrible and you ended someone's dream to win, based on your own decisions. You owe that contestant an Apology and some money! And the saddest part is you did this show right before the finale. That chef looks like a great chef and because his grandma you chose used box pudding... all of the judges should be ashamed of themselves. Can't watch anymore of this.

An awkward style of show for a show that has 3 prominent food network chefs and yet reads like they've never seen a well produced cooking show. The judging is very off, seems like they're playing favorites a little bit. The challenges, the time limits, the critiques, the verbiage of "knockout". Everything just lacks identity. Being from the south, we all know that these foods need a lot longer time to develop and render most of these ingredients but then they ding the chefs for not getting things that cannot be done, in a proper time. Assigning everyone different things that cook very differently also shows a real lack of knowledge of the food you're judging. I can't make a slow braised ingredient act the same as a fast acting ingredient.

As a cooking competition, it was ok. The amount of contestants, judges and challenges were what they needed to be for the relatively short 6 episode run. The contestants were likable and at least one judge was articulate in his critiques in a more technical way. Beyond that, there were issues.

The judging criteria seemed to be made up on the fly. Soon judges were critiquing on the buzzword "innovation," which was frustrating when during the finale they did not mention this criteria at all. So how important was it really?

The episodes were just shy of fifty minutes each, and contained far too much fluff like contestant biographies, exit speeches from both the judges and contestants. And then language about soul food cooking that yes could've on point and educational, but somehow just lacked detail, clarity and impact, to really hold my attention. I also found the host pretentious as she kept asking the contestants why they were there like it was some spiritualist job interview. Isn't wanting $50k grand prize enough?

I skipped to the plating of the food and the judging at times. Some challenges were on theme and had relevance, such as the music theme challenge or the tribute challenge or the grandma dessert challenge, all three of which brought out sides of the contestants I was actually interested in, apart from their main backstory which I was not. But other challenges were not as inspired and also did not give players significant or interesting advantages when they won the mini "starter" challenges (which also didn't come into elimination criteria that much?).

I think overall, the show is far too self-indulgent. Much of the repetitive things the host, judges and contestants say should've been edited out. Probably each episode could be ten or twenty minutes shorter.

I can applaud the show for trying to validate soul food cooking, and raise it up to be as important as other cuisine. But there's other ways of doing that then just talking about it. Show more of the actual cooking.

While controversial, the end result is not contradicting the values of the show. However it was misleading of the judges to consistently ask for innovation when the reality was they valued another criteria more apart from that. Kudos for the runner up to be graceful about it, as it wasn't his fault the judges didn't know what they wanted, and they had actually against their own values some of the time. Which again lent to the sense of pretension I was getting irritated by as the show went on.

Still a unique show, and possibly worth checking out in any next season. If you really want a cooking show though, I think there are more fast paced and exciting options.

This was a great way to represent and showcase culture through skillfully crafted dishes. That said, the finale seemed more of an effort to designate a "humble" winner rather than give credit to the consistent skills of the other 2 chefs. It was enjoyable to watch and made my mouth water but the ending left a bit of a sour taste in my mouth. Doesn't bode well for a show based on competition to instead choose a winner based on other factors such as personal growth and humility. That said, I can acknowledge that those are very admirable and valuable traits, however the purpose of a competition is to highlight the most skilled competitors. If they were to choose winners based off of other factors I think those things should be openly disclosed as part of the judgement process. It would set the stage for viewers and competitors themselves to understand how they're going to be judged. I hope all of them were able to enjoy elevated success afterwards.

I have been cooking for many years and don't understand the Soul Food Cooking Styles they had them do... if I was to tell my Grandma to elevate her Collard Greens she would look at me crazy!! I understand the techniques each one brought to the table but the Judges were not good at all and they even cut each others throat at times depending on the plate. Chef Dorian was a BEAST and when I saw her elimination I cut the TV OFF immediately. It's a poor representation of Soul Food and a disgrace to those who were looking for Soul Food Cooking not a pretty plate.. Soul Food is not a pretty plate it's flavor, tenderness, texture , passion and LOVE. They are were good even to the one's who thought they were the best in the country at what they do. When I think of Soul Food I think of getting my stomach full.