Bobby Flay Explains How His Childhood Taught Him 'How to Lose' on Competition Shows: 'An Important Part of Life'

Years on the courts, fields and tracks prepared Bobby Flay for Food Network stardom.

Celebrity Chef — who hosts and competes in cooking shows like Bobby’s triple threat, the Iron Chef and Defeated Bobby Flay — he says his fiery, competitive nature is ingrained in him.

“When I was younger, I was always very competitive in track and field, baseball, basketball, running track and cross country and so on,” Flay tells PEOPLE.

He adds that fitness “has become a part of my adult life. And so when I’m on those cooking shows, which I now consider part of my athletics — there’s a class, there’s a contestant, there’s a competition, there’s a run around — it’s basically the next version of a sporting event for me.”

Bobby Flay on ‘Beat Bobby Flay’. Food Network Channel

The moral and emotional side of the sport also applies to its culinary competitions, such as the 600+ Defeated Bobby Flay episodes he made. In the hit show, two chefs face off for the chance to cook against Flay with their own specialty. A blind taste test of three judges decides the winner.

“I think competitive sports, like healthy sports activities, teach you as a young kid how to be kind and how to lose because it’s going to happen,” Flay says. “I just feel like it’s perfectly fine when I lose. I shake hands with the person who beat me fairly and we go to the next one. I mean, learning how to lose is an important part of life.”

The New Yorker wrote about his active childhood in his 18th cookbook, First chapterwhich was published on October 29. In the introduction, Flay wrote that his academic struggles as a child were contrasted with his athletic successes. “I had a game – just not with my textbooks,” he wrote.

After dropping out of high school during his sophomore year, Flay’s school chapter finally ended. And that’s when First chapter really started.” Soon after, he got a job bussing at a restaurant in New York and his culinary career grew from there. Flay joined the Food Network in 1996 with his first series Grill’ & Chillin’.

Bobby Flay and his father, Bill Flay.

Bobby Flay/Instagram

The book focuses on groundbreaking moments in his “cooking life” and highlights 100 recipes, most of which come from his restaurants, but some may be familiar to Food Network viewers.

“I only took a few things from TV shows because I wanted that to be my life and career so far as a chef, so restaurants are the most important to me in this particular case,” he says.

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In particular, he only included recipes from shows that “stuck” with him. “I just felt like those dishes became part of my repertoire in a much bigger way than just like, ‘Oh, I have to cook this today because someone challenged me.’ Every once in a while a dish will feel different to me and I’ll want to do more research and try it more than once just because I had to cook it in 45 minutes,” says Flay.

First chapter it differs from Flay’s previous cookbooks. “This is definitely the most important book for me that I have written. I’ve never done a book with this kind of approach, in the style of a coffee table book.” he says. “This is not a cookbook for cooking at home. I wanted this to be a collector’s item.”

The first chapter, published by Clarkson Potter, is now available wherever books are sold.

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Source: HIS Education