[Issue ON] "Black-and-white chef" on a cooking competition show...What's the secret to your popularity?

■ Host: Anchor Lee Ha-rin, anchor Jeong Jin-hyung
■ Starring: cultural critic Ha Jae-geun

* The text below may differ from the actual broadcast content, so please check the broadcast for more accurate information. Please specify [YTN NewsON] when quoting.

[Anchor]
If the chefs of famous restaurants compete only by cooking, who will win first place? It's an imagination that anyone can imagine while eating at a delicious restaurant at least once. The entertainment show "Black and White Cook," which makes this imagination a reality, is gaining sensational popularity. Let's talk in detail with cultural critic Ha Jae-geun. These days, people say you can't talk if you don't know black and white chefs, but there might be people who don't know, so what kind of concept is it?

[Ha Jae-geun]
This is a survival cooking competition program aired on OTT, where 100 chefs appear and compete. So it's about determining who's the best, but not 100 chefs who are all the same, but 20 are famous people and kind of powerful people. Eighty are new chefs who are not famous. The 80 not-famous chefs are called black spoon. So, since it comes out like this, the battle between the white spoon and the black spoon, it's as if it's a class war in reality, and the production team claims it's a class war. There is even a story of such a class rise.
It's such a variety show.

[Anchor]
How popular is this one on Netflix after The Glory?

[Ha Jae-geun]
It's ranked No. 1 in the non-movie category of the global TV show on Netflix. It's ranked No. 1 in the world. And it's ranked in the top 10 in 28 countries around the world. It is so popular overseas, and in Korea, it ranked first in the TV and OTT integrated non-drama popularity in the third week of September. According to Gallup Korea, it ranked No. 1 in the most popular broadcasting video programs these days. However, when Gallup conducted this survey, OTT was included starting in 2023. Until then, I only used to do TV programs. Since including OTT in 2023, it has been so popular that it has become the first web entertainment to rank No. 1.

[Anchor]
It's a real craze, but there were so many variety shows about cooking. But what's the difference between black and white chefs that brought such a craze?

[Ha Jae-geun]
There were many cooking programs before, but it was large enough to differentiate it from those programs. So, some say that the kitchen size is 1,000 pyeong, and there are hundreds of cameras. As a very spectacular video unfolds and a thrilling competition unfolds in it, the 20:80 competition shows a great degree of immersion to the extent that the production team advocated a class war, as I said earlier. In fact, it is often said that a capitalist society is composed of 20:80. As it is projected into the world of cooking, it is like a metaphor for reality, and a great degree of immersion is occurring.

[Anchor]
But recently, if you look at popular cooking-related works, I thought that they were popular because they could reveal recipes and cook them according to recipes. Actually, the recipe is not revealed in this black-and-white chef. Still, why is it so popular, where should I find it? The scale you mentioned earlier, should I find it here?

[Ha Jae-geun]
I really didn't want to watch this program. Because there were so many cooking programs before. I'm tired of it. So I forced myself to watch it with the feeling of a cow being dragged somewhere, but as soon as I saw it, I fell in love. It's so fun that even I'm already tired of cooking programs.

[Anchor]
What did you fall for?

[Ha Jae-geun]
The fun is not that there is any point, but that it is well-made and excellent. As I said earlier, the spectacle that comes from the scale is huge, and then the chefs compete, and it's like martial arts. A reclusive master comes out, and an existing master comes out and fights without the rank. The fun of the competition is how great the existing famous chefs actually have that ability, and the black spoon and the famous chefs how good they are at cooking. In it, there is a pleasure that you feel when the black spoon breaks the white spoon. With empathy. What the production team said was that I was curious about who cooked better among the kimchi stew owner in front of my neighborhood and the existing famous expensive fine-dining chef. Since the general audience also had this curiosity, it seems that the explosive interest appeared when I opened it while solving it.

[Anchor]
I think you were really immersed in it. If you could pick a scene that impressed the viewers the most, what would it be?

[Ha Jae-geun]
There is a scene that became a hot topic, and the judges cover their eyes and judge it with blinds. When the production team is blindfolded and fed food, the judges are famous people in society, and it became an international topic as if they were eating food from their mothers like babies with their mouths wide open. And in a kitchen of 1,000 pyeong, about 100 chefs gather and cook, and later, the judges wear masks and 100 people sit in the jury's seat. Such spectacles and the appearance of the refrigerator being put up when the black spoon and white spoon compete later give a lot of pressure, and each of those things arouses curiosity in the viewers, and at the same time, the famous white spoon chef Yeo Kyung-rae lost to the black spoon. To the iron bag cook. These things touched me when the iron bag chef bowed to Chef Yeo Kyung-rae and patted her while hugging her.

[Anchor]
There are people who haven't seen the black-and-white chef yet, so in the answer, it's a spoiler with a corpse. It would be nice if you don't do that, but I think there are words that have already become buzzwords these days. What kind of things are there?

[Ha Jae-geun]
The judge who appeared as the dark horse here is Chef Ahn Sung-jae, and there are two judges. Chef Ahn Sung-jae and the CEO of Jongwon Baek. Many people already know that CEO Jongwon Baek is good at talking. Are you ready with gloves on? This kind of statement became a hot topic, but surprisingly, chef Ahn Sung-jae is making fun of it as much as the representative of Jongwon Baek. So chef Ahn Sung-jae said that the meat wasn't cooked well. These expressions. We value the degree to which vegetables are cooked. These expressions
are already being used here and there. And the world of cooking is wide. There are things like this, and that's why ordinary consumers order food at restaurants and write reviews. The food is cooked to an even degree in that reputation. The degree of cooking of vegetables is appropriate, and it is said that they are using this expression.

[Anchor]
I think there are various characters of the chefs who participated. The black spoon chefs put keywords instead of names, but why did they do this?

[Ha Jae-geun]
At first, the black spoon chefs don't have names because they are black spoon chefs. So when he appeared as a character name and reached a certain level, he said he would find his name, but the cast named the character themselves or the production team named him. Someone wrote, "I started cooking with comic books while reading comic books." So, there are people who say "man-jit-nam." In addition, the name of the iron bag chef became a hot topic, and a character named Jungsik Goddess, a student of Chef Yeo Kyung-rae, also appeared. In the case of such a character, he thought it would be fun for the production team to compete with him and Jung Ji-sun, the famous chef of Baek Su-jeo, so the production team named her Jungsik Goddess, and these various names became a hot topic.

[Anchor]
As the episodes have been released sequentially so far, I think the fact that the cast members who appeared here talked about the back story on social media was an important factor in the popularity that has not cooled down. What do you think?

[Ha Jae-geun]
Since this program is so popular, each and every cast member is interested, and since famous chefs fall and black spoon fall and this happens, people were curious about what happened behind the scenes, but when people talked about it, it became a hot topic. In the case of Chef Ahn Yoo-sung, I couldn't sleep for two full days and came out at dawn to calm down my mind by looking at my mom's pictures. In the case of Chef Choi Hyun-seok, why did you do that to judge Ahn Sung-jae? That's what they said. In the past, chef Choi Hyun-seok was a judge at other competitions and chef Ahn Sung-jae was a participant, but the position was reversed this time. As these stories come out later, it is also becoming a hot topic.

[Anchor]
The black-and-white chef program is so popular that the chefs who appeared have already become stars. So all the restaurants run by these chefs are already booked?

[Ha Jae-geun]
It is said that many netizens are looking for the place where a month's reservation was made on the reservation site, and the list of restaurants has already turned on the Internet. The cookbooks that the cast used in the past are also gaining popularity again, and convenience stores and Internet distributors that put food ingredients on them are also increasing in popularity. In addition to the popularity of chefs, there has been a lot of interest in K-food abroad these days, but while watching this program, there is such a dish in Korea and there is such a chef. It seems to be very helpful in promoting Korea while also showing interest abroad.

[Anchor]
I wanted to try it too, but I'll have to wait a long time. So far, I've talked with cultural critic Ha Jae-geun, thank you.