Description:
During quarantine, I've found myself gravitating towards shows that are easy-watching. My go-to is Chopped, which is a cooking competition show (with a twist). The meals each contestant prepares must include ingredients from a hand-picked basket of ingredients. There are four contestants and three rounds: appetizer, entree, and dessert. On the merits of presentation, taste, creativity, and inclusion of the special ingredients, one contestant is eliminated or "Chopped" after each round, leaving one winner. For more information, check out the wikipedia entry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chopped_(TV_series)
What really makes Chopped unique is the specific basket of ingredients that each dish must include. Each basket is composed of the perfect of ingredients: not too similar so as to render the challenge trivial (ie peanut butter and jelly) but not too different so as to render the challenge impossible (ie peanut butter and turkey). Presumably, the ingredients are hand-picked by tv executives and professional chefs to yield this perfect balance, but it got me thinking: can we automate this process? Thus, I went about scrapping all of the Chopped Episode data and put it here on Kaggle, to see if anyone can rise to the challenge.
