MasterChef, as I wrote about earlier,
is a show that is growing on me. Don't get me wrong, I still hate
wankers and I still hate food as a form of self-indulgent wank.
MasterChef is certainly that, a big fucking wank! Any enterprise that
makes coconut jelly and reconstructs carrot cake to crumbs on icing
should be drawn and quartered.
But, yet, I love it. And I love it for
the reason so many pathetic people love it: it is enticing. It is not
simply bullshit challenges and shots of, as my workmate put it, 'fat
bastards eating'.
It is the life and death of the
kitchen, the pressure of a deadline, creating something out of
nothing. And most are total dead-shits like me who couldn't boil a
potato. I like the ordinary people part of it, much more than the
extraordinary food part, I suppose.
My poetics teacher would call this
apologia. So what if it is? I like the show and still hate wanker's.
The two can co-exist.
Though I feel like MasterChef
seriously missed a few tricks in appealing to the ordinary people
their show is all about, like:
The 20 Minute On-The-Dole
Challenge.
The problem I think a lot of us have
with MasterChef is its absolute access to the finest ingredients,
cooking appliances and expert advise. I cannot find semi-roasted
smoked hazelnuts, do not have a blast freezer and have only 'just
blacken the top of it' from an ex roommate to go on, in the way of
sage advice (also, sage can be hard to find). They have the ordinary
people, they need a challenge in the realms of those people.
So I suggest the 20 Minute On-The-Dole
Challenge. Here are the rules:
- On Wednesday arvo when the dole comes in, you go shopping. You can only shop in a place the car will get you to on whatever fuel is in it. After you buy smokes, a slab, put a red-back on the footy and another through the pokies and get Belinda her precious fuckin' UDL's you can turn to the ingredients for your dish.
- That leaves you at about a hundy for the next two weeks. Remember Robbo just got in some good bush and you really shouldn't crack 50. Go homebrand on everything. Processed cheese can play any position.
- You have 20 Minutes cook time, stubbie runs and punching cones IS included in this time.
- You can only cook on a pre 1990 stove with a minimum of 3 hotplates out. The one that still works takes 15 minutes to full heat, keep that in mind with your dish.
- You can plate up on plates that are only mildly stained with tomato sauce. Plates caked with bong resin, tobacco ash or spilled grog are grounds for immediate disqualification.
The Memory Lane Challenge.
There are many
people who, like me, don't have much interest in food. Sure we like
good flavour, but that good flavour doesn't need to be MasterChef
level. A simple ready made frozen pizza will usually suffice.
'Usually'.
But
for those of us notable 'non-foodies', it is probably true enough to
say that old favourites are born of childhood. Likewise food phobias.
I, for instance, have never liked anchovies. It could be because they
are putrid little hairy, salty, slimy fish (only one of which I like)
that taste like the armpit of a middle-aged man after a 'stayin'
alive' panic workout......
Heaven When You Get Used To It.
Or it could be an
aversion I have had since childhood. I had to grow into now awesome
things like chicken. I also grew out of some stuff, like breast-milk
and the vegetable baby-foods.
But a bite on a
Bubble O' Bill or tear into a Wizz Fizz is like the first drunken
power-chord of a Motley Crue song....
Herpies and Hepatitis work Beautifully Together
A trip down memory
lane. My nostalgia, your nostalgia does not qualify them as good
foods. They are just important to us because they nourished us during
our youthful years and later our 'I am pretty sure Gemma likes me'
years,
Whatever the
reason, MasterChef should adopt this challenge as an appeal to the
child in all of us. A proposed three course meal:
Course One- A
Post-Modern Take on Cheese on Toast.
The key here is grace and restraint. Cheese on toast has been a
stable of many cuisines, many Western and late night.
This is a slant on the traditional idea. We are allowed to use the
grill when mum is not around, she said it is OK so long as we watch.
We take a Helga's loaf, usually some bullshit like pumpkin seed, and
toast one side to perfection. Then we flip it covering the raw side
with a slice of celo-wrapped cheese. If the cheese does not come out
intact some of the toast will burn a little.
Jason calls and says his mum said it was cool to come by, he just got
a PS4.
The toast burns more than we would like, the cheese is kinda black
and has that bubble thing like a babies head.
Serve with a side of cordial, or flat lemonade in the bottle.
Course Two- The
De-Constructed Dunk-A-Roo, the '-A-'
We all love Dunk-A-Roos, it's pretty much science. What don't we love
though, passive masses? I'll tell you what, the maddening algorithm
that comes with opening one. Make no mistake, the Dunk-A-Roo is a
calculated animal, a perfect storm, an inevitable mess. Sadists say
too many biscuits, you and me say too little sauce. This aims to
address everything that is wrong with the Dunk-A-Roo, eliminating the
Dunk and the Roo.
First we smear the usual dunking paste onto a plastic Dora the
Explorer plate with a pallet knife. Next we roast the Roos' over a
low heat to crumbling point. Then we toss them into the mulder and
pestle for 5 minutes of grinding until they reach the consistency of
icing sugar.
After sprinkling atop the Roo sauce, we deliver the meal hot and
fresh to your table.
You complain, we all know the risky dunking equation is better than
whatever the fuck this is, but you ordered it.
Course 3- The
Flame Grilled Roll-Up.
We take a roll-up, not peach obviously, and our expert chefs cook it
to perfection. Whether you like rare, medium rare, medium or
well-done our chefs cater to any taste. This roll-up will melt in
your mouth, like it very nearly melts on our hot-plates.
We plate your roll-up with a side of red gummy bears, sour orange
jubes and a grape Fanta gravy. It is this dish that keeps our chefs
going through depression, hangovers and marriage breakdowns. Time for
you to try...
You Kill It, You Cook It Challenge.
MasterChef is fond of waste when it comes to meat. In a
recent challenge my home-girl Rose grabbed a huge fish to take just a
small fillet from it's side.
Despite starving millions, I cannot in reason assume the rest of
that fish went to anything but the bin. I think MasterChef tunes the
brains of it's contestants to be almost immune to waste and the
source material of an animal.
Which leads me to the kill it, cook it challenge. The rules of which
are fairly simple, and follow:
- Contestants must line up with a gun, blind-folded at a doorway to a contained concrete room and fire the gun three times.
- Inside the room are the bouquet of meats routinely used on the show; duck, chicken, pig, cow, lamb and pheasant.
- Also in the room, however, are the contestant's pets. Their dogs and cats, if they shoot them they must prepare them. If they own fish or other sea-life, piercing the tank will mean cooking their scaled friend. If they own no pets their family, mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, will be placed in the room, gagged and unable to speak.
With such a challenge I would bet ingredients are used more
efficiently, also probably a lot more cry-cooking would go on.
I like the concept of MasterChef, but it still needs tweaking. Short
of fucking all the pretentious judges off, these three challenges
would open the appeal to the every man. Not to mention seeing Jackie
serve Brandon to the judges, I’ll bet he is chewy.
NP.
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