Competitive cooking isn’t limited to The Iron Chef. All over America, amateur chefs cross spatulas at more than a thousand such competitions, dicing, mixing and sauteing their way through pantries’ full of ingredients to claim bragging rights, if not big money prizes.

Following a small group of contestants on the circuit for a year, journalist Amy Sutherland takes readers on a guided tour of this vast competitive cooking landscape. You’ll visit the high-stress National Beef Cookoff, where contestants have one 30-minute shot at winning the $50,000 prize, the drunken mayhem of the international chili cook-offs in Terlingua, Texas, where female contestants can expect someone to yell at them “show us your tits,” and the Holy Grail of competivie cooking with it’s million-dollar prize, the Pillsbury Bake-Off® contest.

Along the way you’ll meet MBAs who use their business acumen to handicap Pillsbury, CFOs accused of embezzling funds to support their barbecue team and Texans who float prunes in their chili. You’ll meet Roxanne Chan, who has won 450 prizes. You’ll meet the Tunnel of Fudge woman. You’ll meet a cheat or two.

When the fanatics gather – be they chiliheads or barbecue fiends – and hunker down at the hot plate, it can be a recipe for delight or disaster as attitudes get spicy and tempers flare. The food is ingenious and appalling, gourmet and pedestrian. Tons of cheese are melted. Vats of mayonnaise are used. A lot of pesto is blended. You’ll see America at its best and its worst. Bring your fork and spoon.