Too many cooks...why Delia Smith isn’t a MasterChef fan
DELIA Smith has revealed she doesn’t watch MasterChef because its food is too fancy and complicated.
The TV legend, famed for her no-nonsense approach to cooking, also admitted she hasn’t got much appetite for other people’s recipe books.
MasterChef, hosted by Gregg Wallace and John Torode is a BBC One hit. But Delia, 80, said she isn’t keen on the way contestants are criticised.
Asked if she ever watched the show, she said: “No. I spent all my time telling people, ‘You can do this.’ And they’re undoing it.
“They’re saying, ‘No, you’ll never be able to do this.’What!”
On MasterChef, contestants often serve up menus that include posh purees, delicious “dots” and fancy “foams”.
And some use high-end kitchen accessories, such as sous vide machines, which cook food gradually in water that is kept at a constant temperature.
Delia – who once hosted a simpleto-follow series called How To Cook – asked: “How could anybody possibly ever want a sous vide machine?”
“It’s...theatre on a plate. These little dots and foams. It’s theatre.”
Confusing
The star, who has written 24 cookbooks, finds some of the ones written by her rivals confusing.
She said: “I think some of them are over-complicated.
“Half of them I don’t know what the ingredients are. I’ve never heard of them.Two tablespoons of what? I don’t know what they are.” Delia also has a problem with the way the recipes are presented.
She said: “There’s all colour everywhere and I’m thinking, ‘Ooh, I don’t want to eat that’.”
But there is not a recipe in sight in Delia’s latest book, called You Matter.
It is about human nature and how we all have an important part to play in the universe.
Delia once said she couldn’t write when she was a teenager. Asked if she thinks she is a good writer now, she said: “I’m not sure.
“I think what I am good at is communicating. I want to reach people.”
“Communication is trying to reach people. And I think to reach them it’s got to be simple and direct.”
And she told podcast How to Fail with Elizabeth Day: “If I had another life, I’d like to study literature. I think things get overwritten.”