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Basket Breakdown

  • Writer: sdaunter
    sdaunter
  • Jun 13, 2023
  • 2 min read

Oops! We Meant Basket ^Ingredients^ Breakdown

The implosion of an otherwise talented chef on Chopped often follows the receipt of a particularly challenging set (or three) of basket ingredients. Sweet for the appetizer, snack food for the entree, and protein for dessert? Time for a meltdown, and we’re not talking cheesy goodness.


The challenge of Chopped is in the baskets, but how often do the show’s producers throw contestants those huge curveballs?


Snapshot of a hierarchical data visualization showing the basket ingredients categorized in eight main classes: fruits, vegetables, proteins, sweets, pantry, beverages, dairy, and condiments & seasonings.

Enter the Chopped Basket Ingredients Data

Let’s find out! Using the Chopped basket ingredients data from Season 12, I developed a three-tiered system for categorizing the foods. The top tier consists of eight classes of edible items:

  • fruits

  • vegetables

  • proteins

  • dairy

  • sweets

  • pantry items

  • beverages

  • condiments & seasonings.

Each of the eight classes has two sets of subcategories to further segment it and characterize the challenge that its contents might present to a chef in the Chopped kitchen. Subcategory one adds unique identifiers of type – for example, fruits might be berries, melons, or stone fruits. Subcategory two describes how the food has already been treated – any kind of fruit could be presented to the chefs in raw, dried, pickled, or jarred form – each providing a distinct puzzle to solve.


After developing the system and plugging in 300 food items, I used a free tool called Flourish to create an interactive, explorable graphic of basket ingredients by type. You can view ingredients by round or all together and see for yourself which types of items really are most often encountered. (Spoiler alert, it’s not your imagination, seafood actually is the most frequent protein.)


For now, the data represented is only from Chopped Season 12. As with the chef competitor profiles that are the meat of this site (pun intended), I plan to continue expanding this part of the project as I can, so please bookmark it and check back soon.


Best wishes for a fun and tasty summer,

Susan


PS - Follow After the Chopping Block on Instagram!



 
 
 

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