Creating dreams and ‘freaks’

George Calombaris reveals to David Dale changes in this year’s reality show recipe.

Expect a return to ‘‘core values’’ and a new standard of contestant when MasterChef Australia 2015 hits our screens next week. That’s the belief of George Calombaris, the Melbourne chef who has been a judge on the hit Aussie reality series since it began in 2009.

He says the show, which is all about ‘‘mentoring talented people who want to follow their dreams’’, will also benefit from the presence of Melbourne restaurant Vue de Monde owner Shannon Bennett, who has been added to the judging panel.

‘‘Shannon is one of the amazing chefs from round the world who want to be part of the show. You’ve got the likes of Massimo Bottura, Heston Blumenthal; Marco Pierre White. It just goes to show the credibility of MasterChef and what it stands for.’’

However, he says it’s the contestants who have really raised their game for 2015.

‘‘Hand on my heart, last year we thought the cooks were amazing and they were, but hold on for this year. I’m flabbergasted at some of the stuff I’m seeing. You will see this year, particularly from a sweet point of view, some contestants where you’ll just go, ‘Nah, nah, you’re a freak, you’re an absolute freak’.

Calombaris concedes that a key reason for the quantum leap in standards is the massive success of My Kitchen Rules. Australians generally, and home cooks in particular, now know much more about food than they did five years ago.

‘‘In the beginning, we might have got them to make a lemon tart. Yeah, great. But they’re so far beyond that now. These people are in their homes, they’re cooking more, they’re reading books, they’re watching cooking shows, they’ve grown so much it’s at another level now.’’

Calombaris doesn’t watch My Kitchen Rules. He thinks MKR judge Manu Feildel is ‘‘a lovely guy’’ and he’s glad that the mostwatched series on Australian television is about cooking. ‘‘But I don’t really care to watch it, I’m not interested. At night I’m in my restaurant cooking anyway.

‘‘You know, the amazing cooks this show has produced that are doing massive things in the food world – we think about Marian, Poh, Julie, Hayden – people who are actively in food as we speak. They’re not fly-by-nighters. They’re not just ‘Oooh I’m on TV’ and then bang, they’re gone. If you just want to be on TV, I don’t care how good you can cook, you’re not part of MasterChef.

‘‘There’ve been close to 80 contestants and I reckon 70 of them are in the industry now. You don’t need to win. You just need to have a dream and an idea and a goal. That’s what the show does. It gives you this springboard and platform to get out there and get amongst it.’’

How does Calombaris respond to the criticism that the producers of MasterChef (and MKR) manipulate viewers by editing the footage into a soap opera, exaggerating the emotions of the contestants, and amplifying the experience with melodramatic music?

‘‘All I know is I was there and I didn’t need music to make me get very emotional. The emotion I get when I’m on set 14 hours a day and pushing these contestants and seeing the emotion that it brings out in them, there is nothing more real.

‘‘I wish we could have a 24-hour MasterChef channel where you could see the whole day pan out. It makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up, if I had some.

‘‘ Masterchef is built on a certain integrity and belief. That’s why I’m part of the show. It’s a show that resonates not only for Aussies, it resonates through all cultures, cuisines, religions. The Australian version is seen in 140 countries, dubbed in all sorts of languages.’’

Calombaris is comfortable with the job of pushing the contestants to their physical and intellectual limits. ‘‘You know why? Because there’s A$250,000 [NZ$273,974] at the end of this. There’s cars and book deals. There’s a lot riding on it. We need to make the right decision. We will gauge how good they are as cooks at the beginning and, as we go along, if we think we can push them further, we will. We push them because we want to see them achieve. We want them ready and armoured up to face reality.

‘‘You deal with customers, staff, you’ve got to have a thick skin, you’ve got to be an octopus, you’ve got to be a doctor, a teacher, a chemist, a psychologist. But that’s why I love it.’’

MasterChef Australia begins on TV One on Wednesday at 7.30pm. Maybe it’s because I can picture Seal taking himself way too seriously on The Voice, that this album just sounds a bit contrived.

His attempts at heartfelt and emotion-filled vocals just come off as a reality show contestant desperately trying to achieve those things.

This is probably not helped by the 1990s ballad-type production.

Despite being new, it sounds like a greatest hits album – the only real reaction songs like Do You Ever and Half a Heart really evoke is to tune out. Which sounds harsh, but there’s nothing really there to keep your attention.

For the most part, the vocals stay in a similar range, the tracks are often slow and understated – they’re not bad, they’re just not particularly exciting either.

There are, of course, exceptions.

Every Time I’m With You is pure old-school soul – everything you loved about Kiss From a Rose is back in this track and while the singer’s voice seems to strain to reach any real height, the emotion and power is still present.

Redzone Killer and Monascow get by well on funk-filled tracks, catchy melodies and interesting vocal and instrumental changes throughout.

And then the album ends on Love, which is terribly cliched in almost every sense.

There’s not a lot of middle ground with Seal. But hey, if you like 1990s love ballads and Seal singing about how much love hurts, this one’s for you.