The Great Soul Food Cook-Off

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.

As a good ole southern boy from New Orleans, I'll take one of everything. But also they do a great job of upping the anti when it comes to old school soul food dishes. They are wonderful in taking the dishes we know and love and amplifying that without losing the dishes character. Also getting to know the chefs and their back stories are beautiful. Man I need to get back down south ASAP. They don't make cooking like they do down there. Also food aside, I binged this in a day. A fun easy watch. DO NOT WATCH WHILE HUNGRY! You'll be salivating the entire time. They also do a great job of giving you a back story on what Soul Food is and where it comes from. 8/10. Would watch next season.

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.

I have been watching competition shows where I felt the winner was not the most talented, based on judge comments, but the most liked and was happily surprised when I came upon this show that it would appear to be genuine. However, yet again the outcome seemed contrived based off of the judge comments. I do not question that the winner made good food but based off of the complete competition and judge comments I believe that once again the outcome was not based on the actual meals presented but the familiarity or likeability of the winner.