Disclaimer: The Iron Chef concept belongs to FujiTV, and all the people associated with it belong to themselves. This story is a work of parody, loving satire, fantasy, and fan fiction, and bears no relation whatsoever to any real person living or dead. I've deliberately misspelled nearly all the names, just to prevent anyone researching the real Iron Chef participants from accidentally wandering in here through a Google search.
Show me what you eat, and I'll show you what you are...
If memory serves me right, it was in 1875 that…
An urgent rapping interrupted Chairman Kaga's thoughts. He crossed the thick carpet and flung open the solid oak door to reveal one of his young apprentice chefs; the assistants who kept the massive Kitchen Stadium in the castle's subterranean chambers ticking over, obeying his Iron Chefs' every command and dreaming that one day, with luck and passion, it could be their portrait on the wall. Every spring when the first cherry blossoms were budding, a thousand new apprentices were employed, headhunted from the top restaurants and culinary schools of Japan and, increasingly, the world. Some would not last until the blossoms had fallen. Half would be gone before the fruit ripened. Only a handful would remain by the time the leaves turned gold and fell; the Chairman's stadium was no ordinary kitchen, and only the strong survived.
"Yes?"
"You 'aven't got anyone for this evenin' yet, 'ave you?"
"Not yet." The Chairman's voice was icy, but beneath his glacial exterior the assistant had touched a nerve. Such was the formidable reputation of his Iron Chefs that challengers were increasingly hard to come by. One by one the culinary cartels of Japan had tired of the string of defeats their men brought back from the castle's vaults and cut their losses, and their ties. Now there were few chefs in the world who hadn't heard of his culinary duelling ground, and it was getting hard to lure challengers even from far-flung places. The stadium had been quiet for days. With no-one to challenge, the empire was crumbling.
"I got one for ya."
The Chairman looked the apprentice up and down with almost concealed disdain.
"I'm listening."
"Good. Coz us lot are sick of getting bossed around by your tin-pot wonders and getting' all the duff jobs and not a skerrick of recognition when the applause is bein' dished out at the end. So here's the deal - us lot versus your lot. You in?"
"My assistants wish to challenge my Iron Chefs? En masse?"
"Yeah."
The Chairman rubbed his hands, and a smile sneaked across his face.
"That should be most entertaining. I accept the challenge."
Torches flared at the edges of the arena, although in the main area sterile fluorescent lighting kept the cooking areas well lit, as much for the audience's benefit as the chefs. The whole kitchen - actually two kitchens, one for both challenger and Iron Chef - was bugged with myriad tiny cameras and listening devices, giving Kaga and his coterie of invited guests a spoons-eye view of the proceedings. In the gallery, the guests were assembling - the Doc, knowledgeable on every aspect of food and cooking; the commentator, Shenjo Oku, formerly one of the country's top baseball callers until Kaga had offered him an obscene amount of money to call a very different sport; and elfin actress Gigili Gotunoburain, dripping with costume jewellery, a reminder that there was a portion of Kaga's vast fortune dedicated to pleasures other than the palate. In the stadium below, the usually ordered massed ranks of apprentice chefs were milling in the challenger's quarters, making game plans as best they could before the revelation of the battle's theme ingredient, the food that would form the cornerstone of all their dishes. On the Iron Chef's side, the kitchen was deserted. They were, no doubt, resting and wondering what manner of battle this would be - not only competing against their own assistants, but doing so without the usual countless pairs of helping hands ready to peel potatoes, boil rice, mop up spills and otherwise keep the battle kitchens churning at top speed.
His guests settled, the Chairman stepped down into the stadium in a gracious sweep of plum-coloured velvet.
"My apprentices. Assistants. Our phalanx of burgeoning talent on whose shoulders tomorrow's degustation depends," he laid on with a trowel, "today will no doubt be an… interesting battle."
"Too right" butted in the ring leading apprentice, who'd seen enough of the Chairman's performance art to not be affected by the mood, "there's three dozen of us, and only three of them."
The Chairman raised an eyebrow.
"Oh, yeah, four if ya count whatsisname, I guess."
"And you have chosen to challenge the combined skills of my four Iron Chefs?"
"Yep. Bring it on."
The Chairman stepped back and swept his cape over his arm, nearly knocking the apprentice flying.
"I summon my Iron Chefs!"
The curtain slid back noiselessly, and the four Iron Chefs strode into the room. Iron Chef Chinese, Chen Kenichi, caught Gigili's gaze for a moment and the starlet giggled and wriggled at the twinkle in his eye. Beside him, Iron Chef French Hirayuki Sakai, pear in hand, defied anyone to call him camp in his crisp red satin. Beside him, Iron Chef Japanese Roksaburo Mitchiba stood with arms folded, waiting impatiently for the ceremony to be over and done with so he could just get on and cook something. And beside him, young Iron Chef Italian Masahato Kobe stood with his characteristic bewildered air of someone who discovered a television series halfway through it's run; enthralled, yet not entirely sure what was going on.
The Chairman pressed a gilt button on the counter before him, and beneath the stadium gears ground to life. From the near infinite pantry deeper in the castle's dungeons, a theme ingredient was being chosen at random and loaded onto the platform. With a hiss of steam the platform rose, boxy shapes hidden beneath a cloth. The Chairman grasped the cloth firmly and pulled it back to reveal an elegantly stacked pile of packets of instant macaroni and cheese.
Kaga shot the head assistant a sideways glance.
"Are you fucking with me?"