I sometimes wonder what would happen in the absurdly unthinkable scenario that we’re left without a cooking show on our TV screens. Probably the end of known existence. There’s always been one. Even in the background of Da Vinci’s Last Supper, you can just about make out a team of aspiring chefs talking about how hard it was to put a unique twist on “bread for 13”.
There are so many culinary shows, jumping between channels makes me feel like a rather mundane superpower whose only skill is switching the identity of the chef that’s currently waxing lyrical about local produce. I now refer to my remote as The Chef Changer.
Sating our need for pornographic close-ups of soufflé – and unnervingly clear audio of critics wetly chewing their food – is MasterChef (Channel Ten), returning for its seventh season in Australia. Of all the shows that take “stuff on plates” as their premise, it’s probably my favourite. There’s less focus on building up unnecessary, and false, character rivalries to generate drama, leaving more time to focus on the cooking.
Thankfully, we don’t have to sit through footage of the contestants going shopping either (something which often made My Kitchen Rules seem like little more than choppy CCTV footage of Coles). MasterChef has its own supermarket in the studio, which the cooks hurtle towards in a high quality grabbing-frenzy. A note here: chefs make particularly fussy looters, so don’t pal up with them in a zombie apocalypse; there’s no time to look for shards of saffron, just grab the nearest tin of mushy peas!
Sunday’s episode featured the Mystery Box round, a feature made mysterious by the box rather than its contents, unless you consider a crab and a coconut mysterious (I suppose they would be if you found them on adjacent seats on a bus). As far as cooking shows go, it’s a good segment, allowing us to see the generation of 20 different dishes, most of them pretty impressive and none particularly predictable. I could only think of putting the crab in the coconut, thereby creating the world’s most horrifying Kinder Surprise.
After the Mystery Box was the Invention Test, which is sort of the same thing, to be honest, except that the key ingredient is revealed from under a cloche instead of a wooden box. Again, the end results were fascinating, but by this time I think I’d had enough of the TV competition tropes of ticking clock, mid-cook interviews with the chefs sure they weren’t going to make it, and the three judges pottering around muttering: “You’re not making that are you? Ooh, I wouldn’t do that.”
Okay, so the moments of judgement can be slightly grating. First, there’s that moist, masticating soundscape as the three critics gurn, grunt and slaver their way through the dish, accompanied by the metallic chimes of cutlery repeatedly clinking against plates. It sounds like a wildlife documentary of some starved lions gorging on the cast of Stomp.
There’s also George Calombaris’ slightly intense handshakes, reminiscent of the sort of fatalistic bonding sessions that occur between two soldiers before they go over the top. I’m convinced there’s something else going on as he grips the contestant’s hand: a mind meld perhaps, or the communication of his entire life story through his fiercely staring eyes. Bits of fat to be trimmed, then, but MasterChef is still far more rewarding than most of the alternatives.
And the award for worst promo goes to ...
What were the marketing team behind Struggle Street (SBS) thinking? Having seen the first episode, I’m reassured this show might actually be a sympathetic and eye-opening glimpse into the lives of the disadvantaged (yes, even worse off than those on the rather low income of $185,000 a year, Mr Abbott). Why then set the show up as if it were meant to appeal to viewers who want to do nothing more than have a good scoff at those less fortunate?
Ashley, for example, comes across as a loving father in the first episode, albeit one who struggles due to his various health concerns. But sure, plop him in the promo having a good fart. Guess what: everyone farts. On this basis, you could promote every single show that’s ever existed by showing someone having a good guff out the bum. “Tonight on Bondi Vet, Dr Chris Brown deals with an injured puppy ... [Prrrrrp] ... ooh, whoopsie!”
