Ready.. Set... Cook! was the first cooking game show that debuted on the Food Network on October 2, 1995.
Hosts
The host for the first season was TV personality Robin Young. She was then replaced by another TV personality Sissy Biggers.
How the show worked
Two well known chefs usually representing their resturants along with two members of the studio audience (one audience member per chef) competed against each other in a contest of preparing a meal. They're divided into teams, one was dubbed the red tomatoes & the other was dubbed green peppers. The contestants were each given $10.00 to spend on ingredients for the chefs to prepare a meal. The teams were given 20 minutes (later reduced to 18) to make a meal using the ingredients bought beforehand, plus the items you'd always find in a kitchen from a pantry. While all this was going on, the host usually moves back & forth between the teams to question about the meals they're making. When time runs out, each team explains the dish they made. Then the audience holds up cards (one per audience member) (with the tomato on one side & a green pepper on the other) to show which team's meal they liked best. The team with the highest number of votes wins the game. The contestants win or lose win kitchen appliances and/or cookware.