My last post was about cooked-themed reality competitions and why I like to watch them. Today I'm going to describe my favorite one, The Taste.

The Taste is a program created in the USA and it was imported to Brazil, curiously, with the same name (it means that a Brazilian that didn't know to speak English would have no idea what the program is about). It had four seasons, from 2015 to 2019, and it was transmitted just on cable TV, so I just have the opportunity to watch it recently. The program is so good that I watched all seasons in one month.

The competitors' selection has two steps. In the first one, the program producers select 30 people among more than 600 candidates. In the second step, the program judges have to do a blind selection, the remain 30 cook for them, and then, the judges have to select who they want for their team based just on the taste. Sometimes, all the judges choose the same candidate and in this situation, the candidate chooses what judge they prefer. This moment in competition is interesting since sometimes the taste makes the judges cry, and also some judges can "feel" the candidate's personality just based on their food. These are things really beautiful to see. For example, one of the judges, Claude Troisgros, in several moments chooses his participants based on the happiness that he can feel on the food. On the other hand, sometimes the judges can "feel" all the mess that was on the cosine during the food preparation and they get really angry and just refuse the candidate.

Another interesting thing about this program is that the participates have to cook just one spoon. So all these choices are made based on one bite, which makes the program more special since all the sensations are felt in one bite. The judges usually notice all the techniques used, the personal references, and even the recipe (especially if the recipe was stolen from a famous chef).

During the program, the episodes are divided into two parts. In the first part, the teams cook for a guest chef who chooses a challenge such as to cook a broth with a specific taste, the food result all green, to cook food from a country, etc. The judge chooses the best spoon from their team and gives it to the guest chef to taste, the participant with the better spoon gain immunity. In the second part, all the participants have to cook a spoon based on another challenge related to the last one, and the worse it is eliminated from the program. This continues until the last episode where the champion is known.