Each of the "contestants" is a member of the list of names of nonkosher birds in Deuteronomy 14:11-18, in the original Hebrew (as per the Masoretic Text); this list is very similar to, but not quite identical with, the list in Leviticus 11:13-19. This is why all the contestants are eventually disqualified for violating the "Food Code" — the kosher laws. (The "Cooking with Locusts" reference at the end refers to the fact that in both Leviticus and Deuteronomy, the list of nonkosher birds precedes a discussion of what insects, etc. may be eaten.) The five announcers giving the play-by-play correspond to the English names of the Five Books of Moses, both by initial letter and in other ways:
| Name | Book | Clues |
|---|---|---|
| Guy | Genesis | Says "Let's get started," and describes first ingredients. |
| Emeril | Exodus | Makes many, many references to contestants coming out, emerging, etc. |
| Lidia | Leviticus | Is "someone who handles the clerical stuff" ("Leviticus" means "Pertaining to the Levites"), and had a list differing from Delia's. |
| Nigella | Numbers | Uses many, many numbers. |
| Delia | Deuteronomy | Is "to state the rules another time" ("Deuteronomy" means "Second law"), and had a list differing from Lidia's. |
We see the last five contests of a single-elimination tournament that has already eliminated fifteen names; before each contest, Guy, Nigella, and Delia each indicate one of these.
- Guy gives the "first ingredient" (first letter) and says how many there are total; each letter is indicated by its name's original meaning.
- Nigella gives, for a letter in a particular position (given by "at <position>"), what its numeric value is.
- Delia indicates how the name is involved in some difference between Delia's and Lidia's lists.
| Contest | G Clue | G Name | N Clue | N Name | D Clue | D Name |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | first ingredient (of three) was hearts of palm | kos (first letter of three is kaf = "palm") | At 1 . . . Wilt Chamberlain's record from 3/2/62 | qa'at (letter 1 is qoph = 100; the record is 100 points in a single game) | one entry on my list (rhyming with its predecessor) wasn't on hers | dayyah (after ayyah on the D list, absent on the L list) |
| 2 | first ingredient (of four) was ribeye | atalef (first letter of four is ayin = "eye") | At 2 . . . how to travel the 850 miles from St. Louis to Kansas City to Denver in under 13 hours | yaanah (letter 2 is ayin = 70; the route is I-70) | one entry had "head" or "two hundred" as its first letter on my list, but had "door" or "four" on Lidia's | ra'ah (L has da'ah in the same place, replacing the initial resh with a daleth) |
| 3 | first ingredient (of five) . . . — an entire hand of bananas | yanshuf (first letter of five is yod = "hand") | At 3, . . . the time Phileas Fogg had to travel through 360 degrees of longitude to win 20,000 pounds sterling . . . it's in its final form | shahaf (letter 3 is the final form of pe = 80; the time is 80 days) | one name on my list, which was five places later there than on Lidia's list | shalak (its position on the lists differs as described) |
| 4 | first ingredient (of four) . . . oxtail | anafah (first letter of four is aleph = "ox") | At 4, . . . count the minutes until 5 | tahmas (letter 4 is samekh = 60) | our lists disagreed on the gender of one name | rachamah (feminine; the L list has the masculine racham) |
| 5 | first ingredient (of three) . . . — a bigmouth bass | peres (first letter of three is pe = "mouth") | at 6 . . . 20 scores | dukifat (letter 6 is taw = 400) | Lidia and I had a similar vowel difference in one name . . . not reflected in any of its actual letters | tinshomet (appears as tinshemet on the L list but the difference is only visible in vowel marks) |
The remaining elements of Delia's list are:
| Position | English Letter | Name | Spelling |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | A | nesher | nun-shin-resh |
| 3 | C | ozniyah | ayin-zayin-nun-yod-he |
| 5 | E | ayyah | aleph-yod-he |
| 7 | G | orev | ayin-resh-beth |
| 11 | K | netz | nun-final sadhe |
| 18 | R | hasidah | heth-samekh-yod-daleth-he |
We must then deduce who won and lost which of the final contests.
- 1 was lost by netz (the only one with a "final form" letter).
- 2 was lost by nesher (the only one with five or more dots below its letters when vowel marks are written).
- Thus 1 was won by ozniyah (the only remaining name containing the nun netz has) and 2 was won by hasidah (the only remaining name with more letters than nesher).
- 3 was lost by ozniyah (hasidah and ozniyah are the only two remaining names that have more syllables than another remaining name, and hasidah isn't in 3).
- 4 was won by ayyah and lost by hasidah (with yod-he in the former and yod-daleth-he in the latter).
- Thus 3 was won by the only remaining name, orev.
- Thus, 5 was ayyah versus orev, and orev (alphabetically later than ayyah) lost, and ayyah won.
Also each contest's results are noted down by a different announcer. In order by biblical book, we thus have:
| Name | Contest number | Winner name | Winner letter | Loser name | Loser letter |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Guy | 5 | ayyah | E | orev | G |
| Emeril | 3 | orev | G | ozniyah | C |
| Lidia | 2 | hasidah | R | nesher | A |
| Nigella | 1 | ozniyah | C | netz | K |
| Delia | 4 | ayyah | E | hasidah | R |
Reading these letter pairs in order, we get the answer EGG CRACKER (which each of these birds was at birth, thus demonstrating an important chef skill).