Friends, you have sat through many of my rants. Though many are political nature, I like to think I am slightly more well-rounded than that.
I also watch TV.
We have recently discussed my infatuation with home design television, but I have another guilty pleasure as well — The Food Network, the Cooking Channel and other food-related channels.
I have a great affection for competitive cooking shows, though I am here to tell you that the best of them are not created in North America.
In my humble opinion, the absolute best is the Great British Bake Off — although I have not seen the new version without the wonderful Mary Berry, and Sue and Mel.
While I am sure the new judge Prue Leith is just as knowledgeable, I wonder if she can approach the former cast for warmth and quiet humour. In any event, the Great British Bake Off has what I’m looking for in competitive cooking shows — cooking. Lots of cooking. Copious amounts of staring at ovens, willing the pastries to bake. Much commiseration among the contestants on the feel of their dough.
Know what they don’t have? Backbiting, undermining and egos — something most American reality TV makers seem to think we want. The old “I’m not here to make friends” trope. Well, I’m not here to watch a bunch of people fight and manufacture drama. Which is why I have cooled considerably on shows like Masterchef US. In fact I find that as they push the between-competitor drama on Masterchef US — and Gordon Ramsey goes so far over the top, he’s back on the bottom on the other side — the requirements for cooking have lowered to the point that the challenge for one week was — make a burger. Please.
I can make a burger. I want to watch contestants make a Croqembouche. I want watch them suffer the agonies of the damned as they try to replicate a dessert so complicated, a dish so complex, that they are quite literally in tears before they finish. Now, that’s drama. Nothing fake about it.
I have found that the best source of that kind of difficult cooking is Masterchef Australia.
This show is such a hit in Australia that instead of one show once a week for say a 12 week run, MC Australia runs five nights a week for about 14 weeks. About 70 or so shows for one season.
And the challenges are varied, and some insanely difficult — a dessert with 105 steps to completion for example. But again, the thing I like about it is that the contestants are so insanely supportive of each other. No giant egos, no fighting. They cry when one of them is eliminated.
I always get a kick out of the contestants. Like the ones who quit their jobs, so sure they are that they will win and the job will no longer be necessary.
“I’ve risked everything for this!” Well, maybe you shouldn’t have.
Then there is that special class of contestant — and they pop up through all cooking shows — who think that they can make a dish that requires a long period of time, in 45 minutes.
They think they can recreate a short rib dish that requires the ribs to braise for six hours, by throwing the ribs in the pressure cooker for a half hour. Can they? Invariably, no.
Or risotto. How many times have we heard a cooking show contestant say, ‘I know risotto takes an hour, but I think I can do it’. Can they? No. Never.
Or the contestants that enter while freely admitting that they don’t “do” desserts. Or the vegans who literally get sick handling meat but think they can get through somehow.
But what I appreciate about them is their imagination. When the judges say ‘we want you to put yourself on the plate’, they know what the judges are talking about, and come up with some wonderful dishes. If a person said to me ‘put yourself on a plate’ I would sit on said plate. The plate would break and sadness would abound. In other words, I have no imagination.
The one thing that drives me nuts about every single competitive cooking show I have watched is the hair. The odd contestant pulls it back into a ponytail, but not all of them. There is not a hairnet to be seen anywhere.
I think they take put yourself on a plate almost as literally as I do.