TOP COOK: AT HOME

Explaining the sprawling, ever-spawning popularity of culinary "reality" shows is easier than pie. After all, the Iron/Top/Master Chef brigade combines a pair of American obsessions: competition and food. Both are near and dear to a region just beneath our hearts.

"They just get addicting. I'm totally sucked in," said Emily Rockwell, 25, of Chanhassen, who became so enamored of "Top Chef" and other cooking shows that her boyfriend, Elliott Klingensmith, got an extra TV for her.

"His TV only seems to get ESPN," Rockwell said. "This is my ESPN, my competitive sport. He'll do the exasperated sigh when I'm watching, but he likes the competition, so sometimes I'll catch him cheering for someone."

Small wonder, then, that the "Iron Chef" command "Allez cuisine!" has replaced Emeril Lagasse's "Bam!" as the signature exclamation in the Food Network's prime-time programming.

The cable channel has drawn strong audiences this year for "The Next Food Network Star" (3.6 million viewers for first-run airings), "The Next Iron Chef" (4 million for the season finale) and "Chopped" (2 million per week).

Non-food networks have jumped onto this chow wagon, as well. Fox's "MasterChef" averaged 5.7 million viewers last summer and was the top-rated new network series among ages 18 to 49 and 18 to 34. The latest season of Bravo's "Top Chef" averaged 3.24 million viewers.

A stew in which stunning dishes and shunning disses are ladled out in equal proportions probably was inevitable. Both the original Japanese "Iron Chef" and contest-oriented "reality" programming such as "Survivor" grabbed America's consciousness in the first half of the decade.

When "Iron Chef America" took off, the sincerest form of flattery was sure to follow. Now there are a score of such programs (see cover for list of those with active competition this month). But their popularity grew because they combine the craftiness and creativity of "Survivor" with something else: actual talent.

"This is more real than the reality shows in a house or on an island because there's a skill involved," said Lynne Kozarek, 33, of Richfield.

"Most of those shows use the fish-out-of-water experiences to craft the narrative," said Brian Lando, the Food Network vice president of programming. "We tend to focus on professional people doing what they do best while being pushed to the limits of their creativity and ingenuity."

More than a diversion

While fierce competition and food concoctions are the primary drawing cards, don't discount the human element.

"They seem to balance the right blend of personality with the culinary wow factor," said St. Paul's Kevin Fitzgerald, 30. "They also give me all sorts of ideas. I may never dream of making half of the items on a particular show, but I do like the idea of pulling a side dish or component into a meal I may make for my friends and family."

Rockwell has "learned a lot about techniques, flavors and new ways of pairing."

Kozarek has taken her appreciation for chefs and their concoctions a few steps further. She and fiancé Keith Morioka got hooked on "Top Chef Masters," which features nationally known chefs, and decided to turn their fandom into a hobby, even an avocation.

So now they cook dishes that they saw created on "Top Chef" and visit celebrity chefs' restaurants during their travels. They went to Kevin Gillespie's Woodfire Grill in Atlanta over Labor Day weekend and have eaten at Hubert Keller's Fleur de Lys in Las Vegas and Graham Elliot Bowles' eatery in Chicago.

Kozarek, a communications and social media consultant, writes about the travels and their stabs at re-creating dishes at her blog, eatdrinklifelove.wordpress.com.

But even their fandom has its limits. When they were testing Chicago chef Rick Bayless' tacos, she eschewed the prime ingredient: beef tongue. "I prefer that my food not lick me back." And when Morioka suggested that they become contestants on "MasterChef"?

"I said no, I'm not interested in getting yelled at by [judge] Gordon Ramsay."

They're here to stay

Not that these shows have lacked Minnesota flavor(s). Pastry maestro Susan O'Boyle-Jacobson won the Candy Castles Food Network Challenge in April 2006, two days before she died, and Saffron chef/owner Sameh Wadi squared off -- and lost -- against perhaps the world's foremost Iron Chef, Morimoto, last January.

That show was a natural for Wadi, who said that the original Japanese "Iron Chef" was one of the reasons he became a cook.

"I was 13 years old and I would lock myself into my room to watch it," Wadi said. "And everyone thought I was watching something I shouldn't be. They would break in the door and go 'What's the matter with this kid?'

"It's a huge honor to go from fan to contributor. Competition is in my blood."

There have been other local participants, and there most certainly will be more to come. The cornucopia of food-fueled concepts has only begun to be tapped.

"The food industry continues to offer new possibilities," said Lando, the Food Network exec, adding that the recent mobile-food movement led to the network's latest prime-time addition, "The Great Food Truck Race."

Saveur magazine editor and "Top Chef" judge James Oseland agreed. "There's something almost primal about watching people do something as well as they can possibly do it," he said.

"When I was a fan of the Japanese 'Iron Chef' years ago, [the genre] struck me as finite. But it is giving the appearance of being inexhaustible."

At least until they get to "Lutefisk Lockdown."

Bill Ward • 612-673-7643