Cooking shows have been a mainstay of public television for many years. Julia Child blazed the trail for this genre with her wit, charm, and demystification of cooking techniques. In the early 2000s, cooking shows on cable TV such as Iron Chef and others, popularized this unique form of television entertainment while also educating and informing its viewers about the culinary arts.

If you are into cuisine and food shows, Cuisinart’s Culinary Cook-Off Video Contest may be just what the cook ordered for you to fulfill your dream of producing a cooking video. Cuisinart is excepting videos in the categories of:

* Product Testimonial
* Commercial Ad
* Instructional video on best uses of a Cuisinart product
* Step-by-step video on your favorite recipe
* A “Mockumentary”

Videos submitted to the contest cannot be longer than 10 minutes or more than 100MB in file size. Content must be original and not contain any explicit material. Video entries uploaded to Cuisinart.com cannot be sold, re-distributed, broadcast, or circulated. Videos can be shot with digital cameras and cell phones in .avi, .mov, and .mpg formats.

No cash prizes are available for this competition but winners receive award products from Cuisinart. The contest is ongoing till next year. The present deadline for entries is April 30, 2009. The next deadline is set for August 31, 2009. Visitors vote and grade video submissions displayed on Cuisinart.com. The top entries are passed on to a judging panel that selects the winners.

An account on the Cuisinart.com website is needed for contestants to upload their content. For a complete description of contest rules, go here.

Bonne chance and bon appetit!