Watching Food Competition TV With Children

However long ago, when we came to the end of the Great British Bakeoff, there was incredible sorrow and gnashing of teeth amongst the children, and anxiety that there would be nothing fun to watch ever again. (What gives, Netflix, why only one season?) How would we go on? Would we have to read books of an evening? Talk of each other? Perish the thought.

After much complaining about town, a friend took pity and told me about Master Chef Junior, and here we are, a month later, about to start the last season.

For those of you who don’t know, Master Chef Junior is food competition for 8 to 13 year olds. They are called Young Home Cooks by the show’s three presenters–Gordon Ramsay and two other people who are not famous enough to be known by me. The children competitors come to the Master Chef kitchen and are eliminated two by two, challenge by challenge, until there is only one left. That one is given a trophy and $100,000. (“I’m not here for the trophy,” snarks Alouicious, “I’m just here for the money.”)

The fascinating thing for the adult viewer, of course, is that these children cook a dizzying arrange of dishes the ordinary person can’t even afford to order in a restaurant, let alone concoct in a regular “home kitchen”. That’s what I have, I have a “home kitchen,” and I am a mature, seasoned “home cook”. I can open a tin with the best of them.

The age of the competitors is always much remarked upon, by the judges, as they taste food and give criticism. “How old are you?” “What year were you born?” “When did you start cooking?” The children lisp their answers and dance about, unable to keep still, because they are children. “Wow,” says Gordon Ramsay, “this is delicious.”

Master Chef Junior has ruined our ability to talk about food. “Describe this dish to me,” is always ringing in my ears. I find myself muttering, “I gently opened this packet of ramen, and then I poured the boiling water right over. I hope you like it Chef.” Anytime a child is said to be “sticking close to his culinary roots” Alouicious launches in with variations upon the theme, “I have prepared for you, tonight, a spiedie. I first diced the chicken breast and poured over a whole bottle of Italian dressing. Then I lightly grilled the marinated chicken on a grill that I purchased from Lowe’s on sale. The beautifully soft bun is from Weiss.”

Most of the time you can’t hear the television, though, because Aloucious is not the only one talking. So is everyone else. Marigold is always shouting about which “character” she likes best, and which she likes least, and which she hopes will “go out”. The other children say unkind things about the appearance and abilities of the children on the screen. One sweet looking little girl always wore a baseball cap backward and Gladys had nothing but ire and vitriol for her based on this idiosyncrasy alone. Children are so awful.

The thing that I find most fascinating is not the level of cooking, nor the abilities of the children (although it really is amazing), it’s the fact that they eliminate them and tell them when they’ve done a bad job. It is certainly much much kinder than ordinary food competition tv. There’s no “pack up your knives and go”. But they nevertheless deliver terrible news like, “there’s no salt” and “this oyster is overlooked and rubbery.” It feels like food is the last bastion of objectivity. You can’t make judgement statements about anything in any other realm of life, but if the pork loin is dry, it’s totally fine to say so.

What if I just self identity as a brilliant 12 year old Home Cook? I’d like to cook for Gordon Ramsay….well, no, a scrap that. I’d like to be a food competitor in a show with Anthony Bourdain. Actually, I’d just like to watch food competition judged by Anthony Bourdain. That would be brilliant television, worth the price of never reading a book again.