Seventy-five. That is the number of times Bobby Flay has lost to American food on his own American cooking show. More than a third of every loss in this book belongs in this chapter.
Bobby Flay is the chef who made Southwestern American cooking a national category. The set in Beat Bobby Flay is built on the assumption that nobody walks in and out-cooks him at burgers, fried chicken, meatballs, mac and cheese, BBQ. Seventy-five chefs walked in and did.
Some of them are famous. Most of them are not. American cooking is not a TV personality with six restaurants. It is seventy-five people you have not heard of, in towns you have not visited, doing the work.