I’ve mentioned before that I’m a big fan of Iron Chef America. Two chefs get an hour to prepare five dishes that showcase the day’s secret ingredient…then they are judged.

And other competitive cooking shows, think Throwdown with Bobby Flay, Chopped and Top Chef to name a few, can be very entertaining.

But apparently there’s a new competition that is playing out among some recipe and food publishing heavyweights.

The article Pestles at dawn? Food52.com and Cook’s Illustrated face off in recipe throwdown is the start of a competition to determine whether “professional test kitchen protocols or the online consensus of multiple cooks” is the best way to judge how good a recipe really is.

Each system has been used to come up with a recipe for sugar cookies and pork shoulder, and starting May 5, people can try the recipes out themselves and vote for their favourites at slate.com.

I for one, will be interested to find out what happens. Right now, I’m equally likely to pick the most popular reader submitted recipe on a site like allrecipes.com as I am to try a chef’s recipe on epicurious.com.

What do you say? Do you put more trust in other home cooks or in the words of a professional chef?