Television
Pass the sauce
by Diana Wichtel
Sometimes you can have too much of a fiendishly moreish thing.
So, we have our own version of MasterChef. In a time of financial and ecological crisis, the world certainly needs another bunch of amateur cooks using up their 15 minutes of fame sweating over the definitive eye-fillet on mash with a red wine reduction. Still, as the Great Depression showed, the road to Armageddon is paved with pointless light entertainment. In the 1930s, they got Busby Berkeley musical extravaganzas and Duck Soup. We get a deconstructed fish pie.
Before the series started, MasterChef’s three judges went on Close Up for some of the inhouse promotion that passes for current affairs these days. Fill-in host Mike Hosking departed from the show’s normal practice and asked a pertinent question. It was about the inescapability of cooking-related activity on our screens these days. “Why?” he asked. Ross Burden, Simon Gault and Ray McVinnie went on about cooking being the new rock’n’roll, and the popularity of farmers’ markets, etc, but you were left none the wiser, really. Maybe these pressure-cooker competitions are a way of embodying the anxiety of an age in which we are surrounded by food we’re too afraid to eat without consulting a health professional.
At least MasterChef, unlike so many reality shows, doesn’t require contestants to cook or eat anything actively disgusting. Yet. So far, the most outrageous gastronomic escapades have involved pork fillet cooked in orange juice and cola and asparagus dipped in chocolate. But the pressure is always on to be innovative. Gault admitted to once serving up a caesar salad in a VW hubcap. Who knows where the quest for novelty could lead? A vicious 90s Reeves and Mortimer parody of the British MasterChef had a contestant serve up a human arse with salad. “Innovative!”
So far, at our end of the trend, everyone is taking MasterChef very seriously indeed. There was a woman in the first episode who turned up for her audition the day after her father died. “His last words to me were to come up here and kick butt.” There’s no sentiment in this game and the judges sent her on her way. Nicely. They say that in this local version there won’t be a mean one. Where’s the fun in that?
But there wouldn’t be so many of these shows if they weren’t – like so many things that are bad for you – fiendishly moreish. There has already been the odd classic moment. Nervous, mumsy Sue served up her signature chicken dish with scone topping. The judges loved it. “It’s … a scone!” Sue earned herself a MasterChef pinny. “They want to come to Wanaka and eat my fricassee!” she wept happily.
Speaking of scones – and I’m still not entirely clear why we are – none were baked on the first episode of TV3’s new cooking show,New Zealand’s Hottest Home Baker. This show is as unashamedly cheesy as the feta and spinach pie (with bought pastry!) the chirpy, tattooed, misguided Amy served up to unimpressed judges on the first episode. “If it’s mooshy and squishy, then it’s buggered,” she fretted. Amy was first to be voted off. “Here I was wanting to cook my freakin’ pie,” she said, summing up the cooking-show experience with admirable economy. “Oh, hell.”
Another contestant made an unbaked Milo square on a baking show with “hot” in the title. You might be forgiven for thinking bakers aren’t the sharpest knives in the retro-pink utensil drawer. But then this show is at the ditzier end of the cooking-show spectrum.
The host is New Zealand’s Next Top Model’s Colin Mathura-Jeffree. As Hosking might say if this were on his channel, “Why?” It seems Mathura-Jeffree is there to give his expert opinion on the baked goods: “Mmmm!” He has a way of making everything he says – “You haven’t tasted my cookies!” – sound like a line out of Are You Being Served? The banter can get quite gruelling. This show’s token mumsy one, Karen, explained her technique for injecting a caramel centre into a cupcake. “When it starts to feel a little bulgy, it’s time to stop,” said Karen. “I know all about that!” cried Colin enigmatically.
There’s a token male contestant: Grayson Coutts, son of Russell. He seems to have inherited the competitive streak. “I have a different take … a younger take … I can definitely use it to my advantage!” Though his chocolate raspberry macaroon slice, much like the America’s Cup, didn’t entirely go to plan. “He said he wanted it to look like a snow peak,” said judge Dean Brettschneider. “It looks more like a snow fall.”
Grayson lived to bake again. Episode two promises pavlovas and, yes, scones. Can’t wait.
MasterChef New Zealand, TV1, Wednesday, 7.30pm.
Nestlé New Zealand’s Hottest Home Baker, TV3, Thursday, 8.30pm.
