Because there is a difference between staged and prepared.
Likely what happens is the show knows in advance what the chefs need and make it available.
It also plausible they don’t even need to buy the expensive bits ahead of time. There’s a ton of downtime in these shows where they are shooting different scenes. There’s likely plenty of time to text a PA that’s already in the grocery store to buy the lobster or the filet while the elimination is being shot and next round prep is happening.
In Iron Chef the contestants were given a bunch of possibilities for the key ingredient, they could then prep and request ingredients based on those
You are talking about television. Television is full of manufactured drama. People get bored and consume drama so television manufactures it.
If it was staged why did the donut plant guy have a panic attack and almost cancel the whole episode?
Yes all of these shows are 100% staged bullshit. Anyone who says different is naive.
But if I say “100% of people who make sweeping generalizations with no room for nuance should get the death penalty” then I’m the bad guy
