Food fight

These are times when everyone with even an iota of talent in the performing arts appears to be on TV, battling with other mediocre contestants to win dance and music competitions. The judges usually are as insipid as the anchors and the elaborate sets and loud orchestra cannot cover-up the sad performances. Then you switch channels and come across some crass reality shows with people choosing their mates or hurling abuses at roommates. And you wonder about the marvels of digital TV that brings into your home, unlimited choices of low quality, mind-numbing, so-called entertainment.

But there is one competitive show that I really like. It all began with Masterchef Australia. The three famous chefs first selecting from a large group of amateur cooks and then challenging them through a series of pressure tests, invention tests, team challenges, mystery box challenges and encounters with celebrity chefs to transform them into professional chef material, made for excellent TV viewing. The accomplished chefs managed to bring a combination of passion, mentoring and true interest to influence the motley group of eager learners, many of whom dabbled in cooking as a hobby prior to trying that hand at being Masterchef. The futuristic shiny steel counters, large pantries and refrigerators, the top quality ingredients used to make and present food that looked like artwork, too perfect to eat, was a great treat just to watch vicariously as the judges sampled the dishes, gave their opinions, sometimes praising lavishly, at other times harsh but specific in their criticism, always with a view to help the contestant improve.

I was disappointed when the show ended with Adam as the winner. So when Masterchef USA began on StarWorld, a couple of weeks ago, I was happy to once again get caught up in the excitement of choosing another winner. This show was a little different, at least the parts that were shown on TV. Reflecting the multicultural society of America, the contestants were from different races and backgrounds including a woman of Indian origin who made it to the top four. But the celebrity judges were very rude, there was a lot of swearing (beeping), with the rounds moving fairly quickly. There were hardly any "masterclasses" where invited chefs came and revealed their famous recipes and trained the amateurs. But this show also came to an end, a little too soon, I thought, with 22 year old Whitney, a girl from Mississippi, who won fair and square. It was a happy moment to see how a young person from a small town, with a passion for food and the ambition to start her own catering business could get to the top prize with sheer determination and single-minded focus. It was a lesson I hope other young viewers also take to heart.

At such times, the idiot box redeems itself.