Watch Padma Lakshmi and Samantha Bee Team Up for a Hilarious Top Chef Parody — With a Serious Message

Padma Lakshmi joined Samantha Bee on her TBS show Full Frontal to show an important parody of Bravo's Top Chef that uses humor to drive home the serious point of how undocumented workers help to power the food chain of this country. Samantha takes on the guise of "Girl Fieri" to investigate, conducting serious interviews with undocumented workers, some of whom were afraid to show their faces, others talking about doing the menial labor of many more people on a single salary.

“They’re really the unsung heroes of our food industry,” Bee said of undocumented workers in an interview with Elle. “I’ve worked in so many restaurants that it’s a topic that means something to me. I think they’re generally subjected to harsher conditions than people who have citizenship or their papers because they have very little legal recourse if they’re treated unfairly in the workplace.”

Padma told Elle, "Immigrants often hold on to their own food traditions very strongly because it’s a way to comfort themselves It’s something that’s a common denominator. My child is half Indian, and she’s pretty much raised in America, but through Indian food, I could share an aspect of her culture with her."

In the sketch, Padma pretends to be reluctant as she plays the role of Bravo's Top Chef judge for a pleading superfan Samantha, desperate to participate in a Quickfire Challenge. Mainly, Padma's in it to discuss immigrants' role in the food industry — but she says she'll play along.

Watch Padma — who has impeccable comic timing, by the way! — along with Samantha in the fun, and also moving, Top Chef parody: