MasterChef goes back to basics for new series

April 25, 2012

Back to basics ... the MasterChef judges. Photo: Wayne Taylor
MasterChef judge Gary Mehigan says they have done their best not to overcook the fourth series of the reality show, to keep the dishes within inspirational reach of amateurs.

Mehigan said they have been down the path of having the best chefs on the show, including Denmark's Rene Redzepi whose restaurant was voted the best in the world in 2010 and 2011, but that was possibly taking MasterChef in the wrong direction.

He said after listening to feedback and discussing the format with fellow judges Matt Preston and George Calombaris, they decided a simpler, viewer-friendly show, which also appeals to children, was the best recipe for their continued success.

''Last year we had Renee Redzepi, who is the number one chef on the planet but no kid is ever going to say 'I want to make the snowman' because they don't have a vacuum sealer, a water bath, a spray gun or liquid nitrogen,'' Mehigan said.

''No one since that series has ever come up and said they loved the finale with Renee Redzepi, because they can't relate to it.

''So for me it's got to be relatable and everything we are doing we are questioning 'is it relatable?'''

MasterChef returns to Network Ten on May 6 and for the first time the journey starts in Melbourne, before heading back to its roots in Sydney for the remainder of the series.

The initial 50 contestants will have just an hour to prepare their best dish and impress the judges enough to be chosen for the final 24.

Mehigan said he has noticed a vast difference in contenders' starting skills from the first series in 2009 when the contestants possessed the basics of cooking.

''In year one, we were teaching how to caramelise meat when they make a stew,'' Mehigan said.

''In year four these contestants already know that, which reflects what a lot of people tell you in the street, and that's they now know terms they never did three years ago.''

While there may be less emphasis on having the likes of Redzepi's skills and fame on the show, MasterChef's producers did score a huge coup in obtaining Naked Chef Jamie Oliver for one of the episodes.

Mehigan said Oliver was the perfect celebrity chef on many levels, not least because he has endeared himself to working class people all over the world.

Oliver taped an episode in Sydney during a promotional tour in early March for his mobile Australian Ministry of Food centres.

''He gets the biggest reaction for anyone we have had as a guest. When he walked on set, they were emotional,'' Mehigan said.

''He has had an incredible impact on an incredible number of people and they are the sort of people who have auditioned for our show.''

Of the 50 people who will attempt to make it to the final two dozen, Mehigan said there's enough personalities within the group for viewers to latch on to a 'character'.

During the first week for the final 24 they contend with a 'mystery box' (of ingredients) challenge, run two famous Sydney restaurants and one of them will compete for immunity against Dan Hong who runs Ms G's Asian restaurant in Sydney.

• MasterChef premieres on Network Ten on May 6 at 7.30pm and will then screen on weeknights at 7pm.

Melbourne ups the ante in MasterChef comp

April 30, 2012

Tourism Victoria has partnered with Network 10 to bring the Sydney-made program to Victoria.
Culture and culinary kudos will collide when Melbourne plays host to the season return of ratings powerhouse MasterChef.

The Royal Exhibition Building and the South Melbourne Market are among locations set to feature in the opening week of the reality TV series, due to return to television screens next Sunday, May 6.

Challenges will also be held at Red Hill on the Mornington Peninsula, the Lake House in Daylesford, and at Montsalvat in Eltham as the top 50 contestants battle it out for the MasterChef crown.

Tourism Victoria has partnered with Network 10 to bring the Sydney-made program to Victoria for the first seven episodes of the 2012 season.

Victorian Tourism and Major Events Minister Louise Asher said television advertisements showcasing Melbourne as a tourism destination would air in Sydney during MasterChef to capitalise on the exposure.

Cooking under pressure: how MasterChef reflects reality

Tania Lewis
May 2, 2012
OPINION

Back to basics ... the MasterChef judges. Photo: Wayne Taylor
Glamour and television magic cannot mask the exploitation of workers.

IT'S ONE of those priceless MasterChef catchphrases that we'll be listening out for when the new season of Channel Ten's hugely popular cooking game show starts this Sunday: ''You've put yourself on a plate.'' A phrase that sums up a cleverly orchestrated, multilayered program that is as much about the art of self-promotion and the spectacle of labouring bodies as the joy of cooking.

MasterChef is in many ways a show for our times - a parable of precarious and time-pressured lives in an era of global uncertainty. While it weaves together our contemporary obsession with food porn, celebrity chefs and spectacle into a highly appealing package, the show's emphasis is on competitive individualism, entrepreneurialism and succeeding under intense pressure.

Unlike the relatively instant life transformations we often see on other reality shows, a central feature of MasterChef is its focus on the sheer work involved in producing innovative, restaurant-quality culinary creations.

Cooking here is not the fun leisure activity promoted by Jamie Oliver back in his Naked Chef days. In a post-Gordon Ramsay world, it's about struggle, stress and labour under pressure.

From the competitive cook-offs and eliminations that open the season to the series of timed individual and team-based challenges faced by the winning contestants, MasterChef gives us a particular glimpse into the flip side of vocational aspirations - the harsh reality of contemporary labour conditions.

The broader social and economic backdrop to a show that dramatises work processes is one common to most capitalist neoliberal states today. While many Australians identify themselves as middle class, like elsewhere around the world, the nation's labour market has become an increasingly insecure, risky place marked by a growing gap between the ''work rich'' and the ''work poor'', with more people clocking up longer hours and holding multiple jobs.

These recent developments come off the back of longer global trends since the 1970s towards relative deindustrialisation and the growth of an informational economy, with increasing numbers of people employed in the services sector.

Alongside the deregulation of the Australian labour market in the 1980s and the replacement of protections around wage equality with the ''flexibility'' of enterprise bargaining, the rise of a service-based economy has heralded an era of insecure employment, compounded by the global effects of the recent economic crisis.

Not that MasterChef's George Calombaris worries himself too much about precarious work conditions in the restaurant industry, which in many ways is a poster child for insecure employment and stressful, far from family-friendly working conditions. Earlier this year Calombaris, a multimillionaire who co-directs the Press Club Group of seven restaurants employing 350 people, criticised Labor's Fair Work Act, complaining that weekend penalty rates for hospitality staff were eating into profits: ''It's just not a good business practice to be paying penalty rates.'' His take on the issue is in line with the recent application from business groups to Fair Work Australia, for the scrapping of weekend penalty rates for hospitality workers.

These are the less than enchanting realities underpinning MasterChef's series of pressure tests and challenges. A corporate culture of profit at all cost twinned with a growing sense of risk, stress and insecurity in the job market, with the potential for downward mobility or elimination for the worker who is unable to be flexible or entrepreneurial enough to make the grade.

And as the contestants on the show discover, it's not just hard work and culinary skills that will get them across the winning line, they also need to know how to manage their own personal brand. From the glossy opening titles of the show where contestants are individually introduced to the audience (via ''glamour'' shots set to Katy Perry's hit Hot N Cold), to the names embroidered on their uniforms (along with the MasterChef logo) and the focus on their particular ''food styles'', the contestants are presented to the audience as ''personalities'' and as sites of (potential) economic and brand value.

Of course, the winning contestant has to be an outstanding cook with an eye for culinary innovation. But in a crowded job market, it's not just the food they have to sell but also themselves and their culinary vision to a critical audience of judges.

In this sense the show is in many ways a variation on another competitive, work-based reality format, The Apprentice. Unlike The Apprentice, MasterChef, particularly in its Australian form, offers a softer, more humane take on the competitive game show format, one with better aesthetics, nicer contestants and warmer judges.

Nevertheless, whether the game is played in Donald Trump's boardroom or in the fantasy space of an oversized kitchen stadium, whether contestants are brutally fired or eliminated by sweet-talking celebrity chefs, both shows suggest a less than magical set of realities for contemporary workers facing a precarious globalised labour market, where flexibility is king and security increasingly a thing of the past.

Associate Professor Tania Lewis is a Vice-Chancellor's Senior Research Fellow at RMIT University, who researches on the social impact of lifestyle and reality television. She is a contributor to the book Reality Television and Class.

woah! what a ratings stoush we have on the telly next week. Masterchef takes on The Block/The Voice

too much text to read there k2!!

haha - the thread will be around for months, take your time.

Does anyone really care about this anymore? I'm sure I'll end up watching it

I don't, and yet I'm fairly sure I'll see at least a couple of episodes a week.

i'm already sick of that ''the dreaded R word: risotto!'' ad. especially the bit where matt goes ''oooh, the death dish.''

and that ad with the ranga murdering that salmon, enough of that one already

and Jamie Oliver? ffs, aren't we done with him by now??

i'm excited (and glad i don't have to suffer through all the promos)

Huh?? Literally about 8 seconds of program between two 3 minute ad breaks then.

fucken channel 10. why am i even watching this?

This shit's been on for 48 minutes and my throat is already sore from yelling at the tv

Asian cryer will be out in the first elimination #callingitnow

fucken asian cryer just shat me completely. #SOFAKE

Fuckan Asian cryer was a freak

Fatty Preston looks like a pimp in that lavender suit

Nice suit yeah, so gangster.

has he lost weight? maybe just a little bit?

Was the selection process different this year or is it always video auditions?

mail-Audra

RACIST!

tugboat, are you here to help with this argument?

so tonight is the last night, eh? do they eliminate one, and then have the final cook off with the top 2?

yeah, not a nice term at all there for Audra

it was funny last night how Mark Best was glowing for Andy and pretty much offered him a job. whereas Shannon Bennett just said good luck to Julia, no token job offer

one gets eliminated from the entree

final two then go on, i think a main dish, and then a tough dessert pressure test

it's going to be andy, ins't it?

Bane's death

haha!! wrong thread

Mindy's death

happy with the result in our house.

they must have been some fucking yummy potatoes for julia to get 7s on her main. i suppose, when matt was talking about the criteria they used for judging he didn't say ''whether or not it was cooked properly''

well done Andy! seems like a decent bloke, and definitely developed as the show went on

It was The Blokes Vs The Blondes Vs The Asians in round one. Weird coincidence.

I didn't watch much of the series but fuck that bitch so stale and fucking boring. Needs to learn how to cook and eat some humble pie.

she comes in for a hug like a crab as well, nippers and arms up in the air

Julia Zoidberg

it's going to be andy, ins't it?

yay! i like andy. affable chap.

and it really seems like Everyone Gets A Trophy Day here. Especially when Audra gets $5000 just for making it into the final. What next, a $50 JB Hi-Fi gift card for Mario?

i liked this from the Age recap

Suck shit Julia. Cocky bitch.

finally! i had to wait a whole 2 days to watch the finale. yay for eye candy andy!

does anyone else agree with me that Masterchef Allstars is a flaming Croque o' shit?

i surely do. wonder if callum still has his uke.

sure is shite! Did I notice lego head sporting a lego necklace?

HOW DID JULIE MANAGE TO WIN SEASON ONE!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?!