They are not judges they are actors they are acting Trust me if someone would eat the food the so called judges makes 90 percent people would abuse them worst Then the judges do to the contestants Its all a show and the humans have become sadist enough that we enjoy watching a person abusing another powerless person in the worst possible way. If they would do the same in a chef school the students would murder their teacher rip them apart and eat Them raw This is just a show every word you hear is scripted and they take multiple shot of the abuse scenes they show the one where the performance is best They sell hate and we buy hate
As for a more accurate way, I don't think we can for complete dishes since there are just too many criteria being balanced against each other, and it's a careful balance (not simple like a higher value in one dimension means better dish, it's more like each value in each dimension is carefully weighed against each other).
We could probably turn it into something more objective for a simple task like who can cook a soft-boiled egg the fastest with near-perfect consistency, being evaluated on time and consistency. An AI might even be able to do that in the future and judge with perfect consistency for each contestant.
Generally I think subjective realms do still tend to exhibit strong trends that attract wider audiences or more deeply attract select audiences. That's generally what I suspect judges are trying to evaluate is broad or deep appeal from a marketing standpoint by aligning with trends, and there are usually enough trends at least in a particular society that the evaluation from multiple competent judges reaching a consensus can reasonably evaluate the likelihood of this broad or deep appeal (not perfectly for sure, but reasonably).
There are also typically a lot of objective criterion which, if violated without a very deliberate intent, will typically lead to an inferior product. For example, breaking continuity in film will universally have the effect on all audiences of making the film relatively more difficult to follow, so unless that's a very intentional effect by the filmmaker to mislead the audience (possibly for a humorous effect), it can be considered inferior in most cases when unintended without having to rest on the film critic's own tastes.
On the flip side, I really enjoy Uwe Boll's House of the Dead and find it unintentionally hilarious with all the continuity breaks. 😅 So even something that violates even criterion which undeniably introduces flaws into a product might still be loved by a weirdo like me. Still, I think it's fair when critics trash such a film and rightly estimate that it'll flop, which it did.
Subjectivity is exactly why you need a panel of judges, ideally with a diverse range of relevant expertise for such a competition.
You don't need a judge just to determine what does or doesn't taste good to you. I will say for example that I have never had a spaghetti Carbonara anywhere (including in Italy) that could compete with my mom's recipe, yet she doesn't run a restaurant (and furthermore despises cooking). I guarantee however that not everyone would share my verdict on that.
Taste, texture, technique, creativity and presentation are all part of food judging. Also, judges can put aside their personal tastes and judge the food based on the flavor balance
I watch a lot of cooking competition shows. Preliminaries are just weeding out bad cooks. Those judges aren't picky eaters and are accomplished chefs so they know what to look for
Okay, but when judges disagree and one thinks the food is terrible and another thinks it's amazing (which happens often), what then? That's the opposite of objective.
I'm aware. They judge on the method of cooking, whether it has the right cook, and what kinds of ingredients were used, but they also judge on taste, which is very subjective and the matter of this question
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