Stephen Jardine: Kitchen skills the road to success

Published on Saturday 18 February 2012 00:00

It is must-see TV for every foodie. MasterChef arrived on British TV screens in 1990. Presided over by Lloyd Grossman, it languished on BBC2 and was really only for people who knew their kumquats from their guavas.

Then came the rise of reality TV and MasterChef got a makeover and a new lease of life. The result is one of the TV smash hits of the moment. Currently pulling in nearly five million viewers in a prime-time slot on BBC1, it works because it is reality TV with brains.

Yes, we get real people and real drama with all the tears and tantrums we’ve come to expect from this type of television. But we also take away ideas and inspiration.

Sue Lawrence was one of the early winners, and she is clear why it is such a huge success. “The whole concept is aspirational. It is great entertainment and hugely informative at the same time,” she said.

Key to the success of the show are presenters Gregg Wallace and John Torode. An unlikely duo when first paired back in 2005, they’ve grown into the role and now it is hard to conceive of one without the other.

I interviewed Torode at the start of this series and he told me that, in seven years, he’d never cooked for Wallace. In fact, they had never been to each other’s houses and lived separate lives away from the set. According to him, that makes it easier to bring new things to the show and to their relationship.

I can see why that is important. Earlier this week I filmed a version of MasterChef featuring staff from Scotland’s PLCs. Cook School Scotland at Kilmarnock was plastered with the familiar M logo and the film crew went to great lengths to recreate every aspect of the real show. On the day, I played the Wallace role to cook school head chef Phil Lewis’s Torode. By the end of it both of us had new respect for the job they do. Faced with six teams who hadn’t properly cooked a fondant potato, how do you find half a dozen different and entertaining ways to tell them that? After eight hours of tasting, I was having trouble telling one taste from another. In short, on your sixth plate of tepid, bloody, undercooked duck breast, it becomes clear judging MasterChef is not nearly as much fun as it looks.

Sue Lawrence looks back on her experience with fondness and gratitude: “In my day everyone could have a go and the format was pretty simple. Nowadays it is more challenging but it was and is life transforming. Doors open and dreams can be realised. It’s the type of competition you can use to your advantage,” she says.

We are just a few weeks from this year’s final, and the winner can look forward to a host of opportunities and a lucrative future on the celebrity cookery circuit. Compared to other reality shows, the lesson seems to be if you want to change your life, forget singing or tap dancing – learn to cook.

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