Sound Bites: The Masterchef Challenge

The heat is on, the steam is rising, and the pressure mounting as this year’s cocktail of contestants go head to head in the ultimate culinary challenge. Masterchef is appetizing as ever; a suspenseful sandwich of disastrous dips, calamitous quiches, triumphant trifles and moments stickier than Eamonn’s banana, custard and sponge dessert. Wherein lies the fascination in watching a bunch of levelheaded adults growing tearful over the texture of a slab of meat, and murderous over a mouthful of overly-salted sauce?
It’s a question of getting the mixture right. Sweet praise and sour criticism must be balanced so as not to leave an unpleasant after-taste. The show must be light as a sponge cake, fluffy as a flan, and leavened with enough fun so that the result will not be flat, dull and damp the way through; a pan of deep-frying mushrooms bursts into flames; a tub of mango sorbet tumbles and splashes in a yellow tide across the shiny floor.
Overall, Masterchef is an indication of our fascination with adults who, in these post-industrial times, have the guts to quit careers in management and marketing, and carve out creative careers instead of swallowing the pre-packaged offerings on sale in every supermarket. Yup, without mincing words, I’ll say Masterchef is definitely to my taste.