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(From left) Judge Tiffany Derry and contestant Bambi Daniels on “The Great American Recipe”
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The culinary series challenges contestants to showcase their own recipes.
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(From left) Judge Tiffany Derry, host Alejandra Ramos, and judges Graham Elliot and Leah Cohen
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Judges clap during an episode of “The Great American Recipe,” which airs on Fridays at 9 p.m. on PBS.
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The cast of “The Great American Recipe,” which was filmed in Ruther Glen
Whether inherited from a long-lost relative or a favorite that has evolved over the years, scribbled on index cards or penciled in the margins of a cookbook, recipes tell countless tales of the people behind them.
Looking to explore the many cultures that make up the United States while channeling the charm of hit culinary shows such as “The Great British Bake Off,” VPM, Virginia’s home for public media, and Objective Media Group recently debuted a series on PBS dedicated to sharing the stories behind American recipes.
Filmed at The Barns at Mattaponi Springs in Ruther Glen, the new eight-part cooking competition “The Great American Recipe” features a cast of 10 home cooks handpicked from across the U.S. who are battling to showcase their signature dishes.
“The thought was, how do we do another food show, but do it our way,” says Steve Humble, chief content officer at VPM. “The heart of it, too, was, how do we bring these recipes forward through these wonderful stories, which is what makes America so great, this passing down of recipes.”
Chefs on the series include Tony Scherber, a South Korea native who was raised in Minneapolis, Minnesota; Robin Daumit, who has Syrian heritage but calls Maryland home; and Irma Cadiz, who has lived in New York City's Harlem for the past decade and uses her neighborhood as a source of inspiration.
“We really wanted it to be a national show, with people from all over the country with different diverse backgrounds and cooking styles and ethnicities that everybody can just get behind,” Humble says. “We all have enough tough stuff we hear in the news every day. Food brings people together.”
Previously chief operating officer at The Martin Agency, Humble also produced “The Inn at Little Washington: A Delicious New Documentary,” which goes behind the scenes at the only Michelin-starred restaurant in Virginia. He joined the VPM team three years ago when it was still known as the Community Idea Stations.
Originally fleshing out the idea for a cooking series before the pandemic, the team ended up putting the production on pause until last fall. In search of a shooting location that was close to Richmond, could represent Virginia and had a sense of Americana to it, they stumbled on the scenic area in Ruther Glen, about 40 minutes outside the city.
“ ‘The Great British Bake Off’ has their tents, we have a barn,” Humble says with a laugh.
During each episode, two competing chefs must create a dish based on a theme, pulling recipes from their personal culinary catalogs. The judges are chef Leah Cohen, who has Filipino and Romanian-Jewish heritage; Tiffany Derry, owner of Texas restaurant Roots Southern Table; and restaurateur and author Graham Elliot, all of whom critique taste, execution and how well contestants adhere to the task at hand. The host of the series is “Today” food and lifestyle contributor Alejandra Ramos.
Filming for the series occurred over the course of three weeks, including the occasional expected production flub, such as the air conditioning cutting off in the middle of shooting on the first day, or an oven that stopped working.
Unlike a number of cooking competitions where contestants rely on the same mise en place of the ingredients, Humble says that for “The Great American Recipe,” each of the 10 cooking stations and its stocked ingredients were vastly different, reflecting the diversity of each chef's repertoire.
The show’s finale will require finalists to prepare an entire meal, and the winning dish will be featured on the cover of the show’s namesake cookbook, shot by Richmond-based Fred & Elliott Photography. The cookbook will include recipes from the contestants and the judges.
As the series unfolds, the rich cooking stories and experiences of the chefs, including the judges, are revealed.
“It takes a village to shoot a competition show like this,” Humble says. “Looking back, I think we all really feel like we achieved what we set out to achieve, a nice show that’s inspiring. Emotion, laughter, it’s a little bit of everything, also just wonderful stories that knit the whole thing together and make you feel something."
“The Great American Recipe” airs at 9 p.m. Fridays through Aug. 12 on PBS.
