MasterChef catches up with the times
For years, I was a dedicated viewer of MasterChef. Years. Then I got jack of it. Recently I came back. Here is my story.
George Calombaris’ repeated wage theft and Matt Preston’s attempts to ramp up the emotions of contestants both put me off in a big way. I got grumpy as anything when Calombaris decked a kid at the football and appealed his conviction.
With reality television, it can be hard to divorce the reality from the television. I felt like I didn’t like either of these guys. A parade of alleged wage thieves is pretty off-putting.
Also, surely we can have a woman doing what these blokes have been doing for 10 years? I beg you, Shine Australia, makers of this programme.
But the puffed-up chests of the presenters were not my only problem.
In 2009, after two decades of cooking spaghetti bolognaise on high rotation, I was pretty keen to get my head around new recipes and techniques.
I’m a good cook and married to a good cook so we figured MasterChef would show us what was new and what was possible. Then, it was all Hainan chicken and decent roasts and a few years ago, a delicious upside down apple tart any idiot can make. Including me.
It doesn’t do that any more. This cooking programme is so far distant from early contestants
Julie and Poh. They both cooked great home-style food that was possible to recreate in a normal domestic kitchen. Now it’s all blowtorches and icecream makers and freaking tweezers.
The cooking has come a long and impossible way and there’s now almost nothing I could cook for a family meal. It gives me ideas, sure. For instance, celeriac makes a delicious buttery puree but also makes you flatulent as all get out.
But here we are, a few weeks out from the grand finale of MasterChef and I’m back. Sitting on the couch four nights a week. Holding my breath. And sick to death of tuiles.
I’m back because of Khanh and Jess and Sashi and Chloe’s kids. I’m back because that’s the world I live in.
I’m back because MasterChef represents where we are now.
In 2009, with the exception of Poh, the top five looked like what we imagined a stereotypical Australian to be, Home and Away circa last century. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Julie, Poh, Chris, Julia, Justine and Lucas cooked hard, liked beer and we liked them. We were nuts for the recipes.
But now in 2018, our top 10 really are stereotypical Australians. From Indian backgrounds. From Indonesian backgrounds. Working mums. Builder Ben Borsht. Teenagers. This is our reality.
Look, I’m fudging it a tiny bit when I say Sashi Cheliah represents the largest group of migrants over the past five years – India. He was actually born in Singapore, as were his parents, but his grandparents emigrated to Singapore from South India (Madurai) Tamil Nadu. So Indian by way of Singapore.
Jess Liemantara’s parents are from Surabaya. Khanh Ong was born in an Indonesian refugee camp. Chloe Carroll’s father-inlaw is from Ghana and she has two kids who look adorable.
These folks are gay and straight. Beautiful and less beautiful. Tall and pretty short. Tatts and no tatts. Older and Jess, 19. Nine of the 2018
This MasterChef is more watchable because we can identify. I feel like they are more like the folks I’d see on the street.
contestants were born overseas but clearly there are a truckload with parents and grandparents from all over the place.
That makes this MasterChef more watchable because we can identify. I feel like they are more like the folks I’d see on the street although they clearly get their hair done every day. And someone else is doing their laundry and cleaning up the kitchen. Not exactly reality.
So, now we are down to the final 10 who should we be cheering for?
Doesn’t matter much who wins now, because we’ve had a whole season of a different Australia cooking on national television.
And watching people cook is entertainment; and watching them cook well is even better. I’d love to avoid watching people make melting icecream, crunchy granita and endless snow eggs. I am not, by nature, a reality television lover; and seriously, the sight of Mr Badger, on The Bachelor, makes me feel ill.
But the contestants on MasterChef reflect the reality of Australia, they are far more diverse. Not so much the judges.
Jenna Price is an academic at the University of Technology Sydney.