Masterchef is bizarre. Watch a fat a man in a cravat, an angry bald man and a dull pompous man. Watch a nice looking girl say plain things. Watch contestants who reek of sad desperation; please let me stop living the life I’m living and gather me into food heaven where I might be a chef. Why haven’t any of these people, who seem remarkably capable in the kitchen, applied for a job in one?
Watch the contestants bone a shoulder of lamb. Chop up an onion. Bring things to the boil.
Watch contestants taste dishes and try to guess the ingredients. Ground Coriander seed. Tomato Paste. Cinnamon quill.
Watch these people for weeks on end and hear their own commentaries on their own activities; “I knew it was going to be hard but I felt as though I should just go for it.”
Watch whose watching this.
Kids.
That slack obese Nintendo playing couch potato generation that barely knows it’s alive, are rushing to the television to watch grown ups cook.
No-one gets chopped up with meat cleavers and made into a casserole. No-one gets hot in the kitchen and slowly removes their clothing. None of these people are getting it on with one another back at the apartments. Well, not that they’re showing us on the telly anyway.
They stand in front of stoves and cook things. Cravat Man, Chrome Dome and Floppy Jowls taste the food and say things like, “For me, the texture is inconsistent.”
Children sit glued and next day in the playground discuss whether Chris might win with his pig’s head or if loser Sam will finally get voted off.
Bizarre is the only word for it.
What’s with food? Why is food getting bigger and bigger? A few years ago, it was Jamie Oliver on the telly for a half hour, a big selling cookbook, and even a live tour and that seemed like a peak.
Now, we have a cooking show on for weeks on end, it’s become the zeitgeist show of the year and it’s not about making simple plain dishes we can all enjoy. These people are making high end restaurant food. And when they do well, they’re taken off to eat at Marque and Becasse – not exactly places widely known outside of those with an expense account.
The recent Wine and Food Expo at Darling Harbour covered all five halls. We are about to get a month long food festival with chefs from around the world.
I know we have to eat it every day. I know it’s nice to eat nice food. I like cooking myself. But here in Australia, we’ve gone from Women’s Weekly cookbooks designed to help Mum make some tasty meals for the family and perhaps have something special for when Dad brought someone home from work, to food being a kind of personal statement; a spiritual quest.
The phrase, “we are what we eat”, used to refer to your physiology. You eat chips, you’ll look like a chip. Now it’s more “What we eat is who we are.”
I’m organic. I buy my fruit at a grower’s market. I’m a meat person, I bake, I barbeque fish. We are defined by what we can’t eat. I’m gluten free. I’m lactose intolerant. My kid has a nut allergy.
Food has become part of Australian life to a degree that was unimaginable in my childhood.
The only way it become more integrated in Australian life is if cooking became a team sport. Go Aria! Go Flower Drum!