Copan Combs

Fourteen of the worst cooks in America enter culinary boot camp; chefs Anne Burrell and Robert Irvine ask the recruits to make their signature dishes, with disastrous results; the recruits split into teams and learn to make a surf-and-turf dish.

Boot camp transforms into the game show Family Food and the teams go head to head in trivia rounds and culinary tasks testing their knowledge; a Teppanyaki chef performs dazzling tricks over a grill; the recruits learn to make a hibachi-style meal.

For the skill drill, the recruits must work in teams to identify the ingredients of five mother sauces and then create their own chicken with pan sauce dishes for their chef; the recruits make fried chicken and cornbread for the main dish.

The remaining recruits face off in one last skill drill to determine who will compete in the finale; to see how far they've come, the recruits re-create their baseline dishes using all the techniques they learned in boot camp.

The kitchen can be a scary place, but the recruits must learn to face their fears in boot camp; first, they're forced to expand their palates with some unusual ingredients in a Cake Walk-inspired game that proves to be anything but a cakewalk.