16 Seasons & More: The Enduring Appeal of MasterChef Australia
No spoilers ahead!
You’ve heard the name of the show, you may be familiar with a face or two, or may have spotted a clip from it on your social media feed. Unless you’re living under a rock, you would have at least heard of the popular cooking reality show MasterChef Australia. Personally, it was the first time watching the show from beginning to (almost) end. Die-hard MasterChef fans may argue that this season was a tad disappointing. But for me, I found the format quite intriguing and finally understood its enduring appeal.
Hats off to the producers for crafting all kinds of new challenges that put the chefs’ minds to test! Intellect, ingenuity and creativity need to be applied extensively in thinking of making out-of-the-box dishes with given ingredients. Whether it’s a mystery box challenge, dishing out street food to throngs of people or replicating the dishes of Michelin-star chefs by listening to instructions or reading a nine-page recipe…being a contestant on MasterChef is a mean feat in itself.
Even the use of cooking techniques on the show is so vast — baking, par boiling, searing, filleting to name a few. The sheer range of knowledge of every MasterChef contestant is quite impressive. The amazing part is that every contestant knows which ingredient to use, how much to use, how it will react to other ingredients. Unlike other reality shows, MasterChef Australia has very little to no drama, that is if you ignore the little extra dose of overacting and cheering for celebrity guests.
In fact, after a point, in the top 6 of the show, even the judges were struggling to find faults. A contestant named Lachlan was eliminated only because the dish lacked cohesion and the judges could not find any other faults with any other contestant. As far as the judges are concerned, they have come under the lens for being too loud or disturbing to contestants during their cooking processes.
The all-new judge panel has been lambasted for not living up to their predecessors legacies. But I honestly feel that even though the judges are all new, the contest remains evergreen.
For viewers, the show is all about discovering new ingredients, intriguing recipes, versatile food techniques, and just the dynamics of how people work and compete with each other in a high pressure and high stakes environment.
Despite the criticism of the latest season, the show is here to stay.
