The Great Soul Food Cook-Off

Out of touch egotistical reviews will skew your view. They're the equivalent of an Amazon products that didn't work for a few who were too slow or incompetent but worked out for the rest.

The judges were excellent and well selected. The challenges were great and the dialogue in between was heart wrenching yet warming. All the contestants were interesting & clearly not pre picked to win/be in the top like master chef. That's the soul part. If you grew up with soul food the dialogue is so intimate and genuine like cooking on Thanksgiving and anyone who didn't "get it" wasn't blessed to enjoy this energy. Highly recommend for anyone.

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.

I thoroughly enjoyed this show. I love how it showed that soul food could be elevated to Michelin star level dishes. Each chef had interesting back stories and were all talented. Although the chef I was rooting for didn't win, I completely understood why that person lost.

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.

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.