On Oct. 4, it was announced that TV personality and food educator Yukio Hattori had passed away of heart failure. He was 78 years old.
Hattori was best known to international audiences as the expert commentator on the original Japanese version of the popular TV program “Iron Chef,” which originally aired on Fuji Television from 1993 to 1999 under the title “Ryori no Tetsujin,” which literally means "The Iron Men of Cooking." This cooking competition took place in a setting called the Kitchen Stadium, where a mysterious, aristocratic character called Chairman Kaga, played by actor Takeshi Kaga, hosted epic culinary battles between trios of chefs.
In each episode, a designated Iron Chef (specializing in either Japanese, Chinese or French — and later, Italian — cuisine) was chosen for a cooking duel with a professional challenger, and the two competitors had to make a variety of dishes within 1 hour based on a specific ingredient selected by Chairman Kaga. The premise and the action was dramatic and over-the-top, similar to the cooking contests depicted in food-centric manga, but the chefs and the cooking were real.
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