The Great Food Fight

He’s crazy about “Ben Hur.” He loves “Columbo.” He looks exactly like Micky Dolenz of the Monkees. He’s Toshihiko Matsuo, the creative genius behind the Japanese television cooking spectacle known as “Ryori no Tetsujin” or “Iron Chef.”

For its many dedicated viewers--not only in Japan but in the handful of American markets where the show can be seen--”Iron Chef” is simply the most entertaining TV program ever. But in producer Matsuo’s mind, it’s a virtual fight to the death, in which dueling chefs have just 60 minutes to complete an elaborate gourmet dinner for four judges. As if the time pressure weren’t enough, each of the chefs’ five courses must showcase a surprise theme ingredient--foie gras, for instance, or cod roe--revealed only at the beginning of the program.

“It’s the Peckinpah of the culinary world,” says TV cooking celebrity Graham Kerr, referring to the director of “The Wild Bunch,” “Straw Dogs” and other bloodstained cinema classics.

The host of the show, played by the well-known Japanese actor Takeshi Kaga, is a nameless eccentric millionaire living in a medieval castle. In his employ are four Iron Chefs, each a master of one cuisine: French, Italian, Chinese or Japanese. At the beginning of each episode he struggles to identify a challenger worthy of his chefs’ talents and his own jaded palate. This he often does while contemplating a cream puff in the sallow light of an oil lamp.

At last, pleased with his decision, he devours the pastry in a single, ravenous bite. It’s Julia Child meets “Dark Shadows” crossed with “World Wrestling Federation.” In fact, the show’s play-by-play commentary is handled by Japan’s best-known baseball announcer and the color commentary comes from a super fast-talking ringside reporter who used to cover professional wrestling.

While watching Matsuo’s show, you can’t help but wonder, “Who on earth thought of this?” When my wife and I were invited to witness a taping of the show at Fuji-TV’s ultra-futuristic studios on Tokyo Bay, we were on the next plane--not only to see it but for the chance to talk with Matsuo.

A 10-hour flight to Tokyo later, all but wiped out from jet lag, we set out from our hotel to meet Matsuo for an interview that the translator previously told us would take only an hour or so.

Getting to our rendezvous with Matsuo was a mission worthy of a secret agent. We were told to be in front of an ice cream parlor near the Roppongi district of Tokyo at 7 p.m. After retracing our steps several times, we found the designated meeting spot.

A fortyish man with a modified early Beatles haircut stood on the corner: Matsuo himself. He wore a collarless retro linen jacket with a gray and charcoal button-down shirt. With him was a kittenish young woman in a leopard skin leotard who could have been one of the Tilly sisters, or maybe the Cat Woman. She was Hanako Aso, one of the show’s assistant producers.

The translator we had engaged over the Internet was nowhere in sight. As I had been warned, Matsuo spoke no English. After we exchanged business cards and spent several minutes trying to communicate in pantomime, Matsuo led us to a bistro a few steps away, improbably named Cricket Cha-Cha.

Fortunately, Hiroko, the translator, had arrived. So had Masaharu Morimoto, the executive chef at Nobu in New York, who had recently been anointed the third Iron Chef of Japanese cuisine. Champagne was poured. Appetizers arrived at the table.

I took out my list of 35 critical questions that any self-respecting “Iron Chef” viewer would want to ask Matsuo. But what I thought would be a quick interview over drinks was about to become an evening spent lingering over a dinner worthy of “Iron Chef.”

A small plate of two artfully arranged marinated sardines was the first course. After asking us several times whether we minded smoke, Matsuo lit up a Mild Seven. For the rest of the evening, his fingers were never without a cigarette.

The sardines were fabulous. Four perfect, slightly tart bites. Then the table was cleared and we were presented with the second course: a small swirl of angel hair pasta misted with just a hint of a tomato sauce and topped with a small piece of roasted crab. Again, it was just four bites. Four perfect bites, accompanied by a dry white wine.

Even for a longtime viewer, there is much that is obscure in “Iron Chef.” I wanted to know more about the mysterious gourmand host. Matsuo explained that the character is supposed to be fabulously wealthy and a bit crazy, like mad king Ludwig II of Bavaria, who was also famed for having a pseudo-medieval castle. Like Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin, he has done everything there is to do; to relieve his ennui, he decided to host cooking competitions, on the suggestion of his faithful culinary advisor (played on the show by Yukio Hattori, head of a well-known cooking school in Japan).

But what about the ruffled shirts, the sequined bolero jackets and the thick black leather gauntlets he wears every week? Those are “important factors” Matsuo said, shedding no more light on one of the most unlikely television uniforms ever seen.

Two biscotti-shaped slices of beef tenderloin served with a Merlot were our third course. “This is the best meat I’ve ever tasted,” my wife whispered in my ear. It was tremendously tender, nearly cleaving itself as the knife descended. Four more bites and it too was gone.

“What about the pepper?” I asked Matsuo. Each episode of “Iron Chef” begins with Kaga’s character stepping onto the set and taking in the view of the two fabulously stocked semicircular, mirror-image kitchens that comprise the “kitchen stadium.” Satisfied with what he sees, he reaches into a basket of vegetables, clutches an orange bell pepper and takes a mischievous, gleeful bite.

“Very important,” Matsuo answered. He explained that it’s the host’s way of showing the extremes to which he must go to demonstrate his passion for food after savoring countless gourmet meals.

I mentioned that the kitchen stadium reminded me of the Coliseum in Rome. “Exactly!” Matsuo said, snatching the English word from the air just inches in front of my face. The set was designed to suggest the charged atmosphere of the chariot race in “Ben Hur”; it’s where two culinary gladiators fight to the finish. Typically, both chefs are exhausted and drenched with sweat by the time the last seconds tick away. (See “American Iron,” this page.)

Listening to the dialogue among the show’s judges is a little like eavesdropping on a phone sex call. One judge will always be a willowy young Japanese actress given to cooing pornographically over whatever the battling chefs are concocting. Occasionally the judges look as if they’re about to experience orgasm while sampling the food. I naturally had to ask about all this.

“Eating food is like having sex,” Matsuo confirmed. With my wife next to me I didn’t pursue the subject, but I sensed that Mr. Matsuo probably knew a lot about both topics.

Our fourth course, accompanied by a weighty Cabernet, was chunks of stew meat 2 inches square, bathed in a raspberry sauce. “Beef cheeks,” Matsuo explained. Just weeks earlier we had watched “Battle Beef Cheek” on “Iron Chef” and were slack-jawed when the challenger produced a beef cheek mille-feuille.

My wife took a bite. “No, I take it back,” she said. “This is the best meat I’ve ever eaten.” Once again, the serving amounted to four bites. After four courses, we had put the fork to our mouths just 16 times, but the food was perfectly prepared and perfectly proportioned. Another bite and the senses would have started to dull.

Frequently during the evening, the entire table would break up at one of Matsuo’s comments. I sensed not everything was coming across in Hiroko’s curt translations. Later I found out that she last brushed up on English while an exchange student in the U.S. An elementary school exchange student. So much for the idea of procuring a translator through the Internet.

After the fourth course, things got suddenly serious. The table was abuzz, heads were nodding.

“What are they talking about?” we asked Hiroko. She leaned into the table as though that would help her pick up the drift of the conversation. “They are talking about an American woman,” she said. “Someone named Martha Stewart. Do you know her?”

With the Japanese economy in a prolonged slump, even successful shows such as “Iron Chef,” which has been nominated twice for an Emmy, have found themselves struggling. Matsuo somehow concluded that the show could ride out the Japanese recession, but only with the help of the American market, Stewart in particular.

“Why not ask her to be judge?” I suggested. Hiroko translated. Matsuo snapped his fingers toward assistant producer Aso. “OK, cut!” he said in English, which I interpreted as “Let’s do it!”

It was getting late, and I still had a long list of questions. “Please ask Mr. Matsuo what the K means?” I asked the translator. The “Iron Chef” set and the Iron Chefs’ uniforms are all emblazoned with “Gourmet Academy” and a winged crest surrounding the letter K. At first I thought the K perhaps stood for host Takeshi Kaga’s surname, but Kaga’s persona is nameless. Did the name of the the fictitious castle start with a K? Watching the show yielded no clue.

A small platter of dried red raisins slid onto the table. Matsuo placed one in his mouth and looked at me for a moment. “K stands for ‘kitchen,’ ” he said. So much for the mysteries of the East.

In its five-year run, the program has had seven Iron Chefs, three of whom are now retired. I wanted to know how Matsuo selected Morimoto as his newest Iron Chef. He explained that he wanted an English-speaking Japanese chef who was on the cutting edge, who could challenge the conventions of traditional Japanese cooking. “It was destiny,” he said of his decision to reach all the way to New York to find Morimoto at Nobu Matsuhisa’s New York restaurant. “It was God’s will.” (Morimoto may need divine intervention, however, to handle the demands of commuting every month to Tokyo, where he tapes two shows back to back.)

Our fifth course was a cheese and fruit plate, quickly followed by a delicious light tea cake with creme frai^che and strawberries. I looked at my watch. It was a quarter to midnight. I couldn’t believe it. As fast as an hour goes by on “Iron Chef,” five hours had flown by during my dinner with Matsuo. It was time to go.

I asked Matsuo what he would like to see come of the article I planned to write. “If I can feel your heart in it, that will be great,” he said. “Remember, the future of ‘Iron Chef’ depends on the American market and Martha Stewart.”

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Spanish galss plate in lobster salad photo from Malibu Colony, Malibu.