Food Network Challenge: Can You Accept the Challenge?

Once a week, Food Network airs a new Challenge for fans of all things relating to cuisine. In all parts of the United States, featuring competitors from all walks of life, sometime somewhere there is a huge cooking contest being waged. Challenge is there to catch all the action.

From the million-dollar Pillsbury Bake-Off to the ten-thousand dollar "alternative burgers," Challenge takes you to locales across the nation to meet professional and inexperienced chefs who cook competitively. Fan-favourites include the Wedding Cake Challenge and the National Pastry Competition.

If there is one thing that Food Network understands, it's that food is more than nourishment. Food is also art, and the Challenge competitors know that better than anyone. Because Challenge features a different cooking competition every single week, in different areas of the country, the lineup of hopeful chefs competing is ever-changing. Some contests, like the Bar-be-Que Challenge, feature large teams of competitors. Others, like the Build a Better Burger Challenge, lets contestants go head-to-head with their own secret recipes to see who takes the cake in the kitchen - and takes the huge monetary prize being offered the winner.

These cooking challenges are not created by the Food Network. Many such challenges have been going on for many years, at various festivals and gatherings specific to that Challenge location. Some contests are part of small-town annual ritual, while others take place in multi-million dollar convention centers in front of huge audiences.

Food Network cameras and commentators are also on-hand to tell viewers the rules, the time limit, the prize pool, and to get the scoop on contestants. World- and nationwide Challenges are both featured by Food Network. Pastry and sugar Challenges often feature professional chefs who must not only create mouth-watering edibles for judges, but eye-catching sculptures of sugar and chocolate for spectators. Contestants try to outdo themselves at every Challenge - at usually at least once, audiences will watch in horror while a beautiful sugar sculpture that took six hours to create goes toppling to the floor, another chance at victory lost to at least one competing team.

The ups, the downs, the mistakes, and the victories are recorded with zeal for Food Network viewers. New episodes of Challenge usually air on Sunday nights at 10pm ET, but Food Network periodically airs new and old Challenges throughout each broadcasting day. If you love food, art, or just the thrill of intense competition, give Food Network's Challenge a try. Somewhere, someone is going to win $50,000 or more for a great hamburger, a rack of ribs, an original recipe. Are you up to the Challenge?