Ladies and Gentlemen, start your ovens.
It's the National Chicken Cooking Contest—where hardboiled veterans go beak-to-beak with unassuming rookies in the attempt to serve up the piece de chicken resistance—and things are about to get hot.
The grand prize? Big bucks.
The contestants' recipes, featuring artichoke aioli, tomato-basil relish, and sweet potato polenta, vary in ambition and prep time. And a new rule—pre-cooked chicken is now allowed—threatens to topple a fifty-year history of purism. Will the Plantain Chip-Crusted Chicken with Mango Sauce overtake both Marrakesh Chicken Flatbreads and Chimichurri Chicken Thighs?
They just might.
National Chicken, as the contesters call it, is one of several high-stakes cooking competitions covered by journalist Amy Sutherland in Cookoff: Recipe Fever in America, an addictive book about a wildly vibrant subculture of avid contesters. Initially a skeptic, Sutherland gains a heartfelt appreciation of both the people and the process, finding in cookoffs the idiosyncrasies and competitiveness inherent in the American character.
By the end, Sutherland ties on an apron and throws her spatula into the ring. We have a feeling you might do the same after reading this book—chocolate adventure contest anyone?
Cook your pants off with
Recipe Fever.