Food, Glorious Food
Tasty, Tasty, Very, Very Tasty
The most recent series of Masterchef Goes Large has been a surprising success in the ratings, especially when it was nearing the final that was finally broadcast last Thursday. For you delectation the winning dishes cooked up by the eventual victor, Steve, are snapped above. Long gone is the Loyd Grossman style that I recall having an unfeasably dark studio with guest critics who popped on to the set to sample the culinary concoctions of the participants. Here we have a style much more inspired by the celebrity chef programmes that have typified the genre of lifestyle shows in the recent years. I’m not quite sure to what the “go large” part of title refers but it certainly isn’t the size of the portions served up by the wannabe restauranteurs.
Proceedings are overseen admirably by John Torode and Gregg Wallace who strike me as being very honest, sometimes brutally so, in their opinions of the dishes put before them. This makes for entertaining viewing but raises a question as to how exactly you judge a cooking competition because, quite literally, it is a matter of taste. If you don’t like squid and someone makes you a plate full of the stuff, how are you supposed to judge it objectively? Other than minor quibbles such as this, it’s not a bad programme to dip in and out of from time to time and given the success of last year’s celebrity version, I’m sure it won’t be long before it’s back on the screeen.
Tags: bbc2, Gregg-Wallace, John-Torode, Loyd-Grossman, Masterchef, Reality
March 27th, 2007 at 9:57 am
The problem with this new incarnation of Masterchef is the attitude of the judges. Especially the dark-haired one (I’m sorry, I ironically forget his name). He is SO LOUD with EVERY word he UTTERS. Emphasis seems to GO everywHERE even in MID-Sentence.
Other than that, it’s a damn slight more interesting than its original Grossman incarnation, if somewhat lacking the charm of that version.