Netflix’s Cannibal-Themed Cooking Competition Has Heart and Guts
Queue It or Screw It: Netflix’s ‘Ultimate American Chowdown’
In the last few years, Netflix has gone “whole hog” into the cooking competition craze. With series like The Scottish Sugar Shakedown, Tania’s Twisted Tapas Tournament, Southern Stu’s Stew Skirmish, and that show’s all-star edition, Stew Skirmish: All-Stews, the streaming service has become the #1 home for TV culinary competitions.
The Ultimate American Chowdown is their newest addition to this growing catalog.
The title is — perhaps deliberately — vague.
First Impressions
Judged and hosted by “nontraditional meat” chef Cornelia St. Connelly-Smythe and “alternative food guru” Johaan Vandoerplatzengaag, The Ultimate American Chowdown features home chefs who specialize in alternative food battling it out for a quarter-million dollar prize.
The raison d’être of Chowdown appears to be “waste not, want not.” A dozen home cooks from all across America are tasked with the daunting challenge of using animal parts as far afield as the liver, pancreas, and colon that other cooks might scoff — or gag — at.
