Rachel Ray's annual Burger Bash contest has hit a nerve with experienced cooking contestants.

This year's rules disqualify anyone who is a "serial recipe contest entrant" from entering a burger recipe and possibly winning an appearance on the Rachael Ray Show, among other prizes.

I've covered recipe contests for years, and I've met a number of home cooks -- many of them from Utah -- who enter them almost as an amateur sport. They research trends and ingredients, create and test recipes, subscribe to Web sites that alert them to upcoming contests, and they become pals with fellow competitors. Sometimes a Pillsbury Bake-off can seem like Old Home Week with these "frequent finalists" renewing friendships from past competitions.

The apparent snubbing of these cooks has sparked some lively discussions last week on the forum of Cooking Contest Central, a Web site that lists upcoming contests and offers tips for entering (www.recipecontests.com).

Some said they were insulted at the "serial" term. One poster wrote that it was, "branding us with a disgusting term that is most often used to describe rapists, con artists, murderers, bombers, and the like!!!"