Gordon Ramsay's TV empire: Masterchef

Opening comments

This show’s been around for a number of years and it’s been a lot of fun. It still is, although I’m not enjoying the team format they’ve been using these past few seasons. It sorta reeks of “we’re running out of ideas” or “we have to keep things fresh or we’ll get cancelled”. Plus, as I’d said previously, if the same team wins all the time, it’s not as fun.

Last season was generations— I realize this is a big thing on social media now, the diff generations criticizing each other constantly. Older generations not being with the times and impeding progress and newer generations being so inexperienced that their opinions are invalid. I’m one generation and most of the family I’m close with is an older one and I feel like I agree with more of their values than the ones my gen gets criticized for. It was another good season but I hated the idea of banking on generational angst… America is already divided enough without having a tv show using it for entertainment value.

Masterchef is a global phenomenon with a different edition in almost every country. There’s also a junior edition with kids ages 8-13 and they’re exceptional!

It’s the antithesis of Hell’s Kitchen where the contestants aren’t professional chefs but home cooks put through a gauntlet of challenges to challenge them at a professional level.

Are some of these challenges crazy and over the top? Yes. It wouldn’t be a Gordon Ramsay show if it wasn’t.


Judges past and present


One key thing that separates this from Hell’s Kitchen- Gordon is no longer the meanest judge on his own show. When previews came out, they made a huge deal about the new mean judge in town- Joe Bastianch. He’s a restauranteur (also a regular judge on the Italian edition of the series) and his mom is Lydia Bastianch, one of the original cooking show hosts going back to Julia Child’s time.

Joe has mellowed out a bit over the years the same way Gordon has but he’s still not someone you want to get the wrong side of. He doesn’t mince words. If he doesn’t like something, he’ll either say a zinging insult or promptly throw the plate in the garbage with a straight face. People who try to BS their way out of things or cut corners, he doesn’t let them get away with it. As terrifying as he can be at times, I like him a lot because you can trust on him to be honest. Although sometimes he’ll play off Gordon to make himself come out on top. Particularly during auditions where Gordon says no to someone and Joe will say yes just to come off as the good guy. But there’s still the caveat where he’ll sometimes say “don’t make me regret this.” Most make good on that promise but not always

There was a short lived CNBC show called Restaurant Startup where Joe and chef Tim Love would listen to pitches for food businesses, chose one to do a trial run with and in the end, they’re decide whether or not to invest (individually or as a joint effort). It was a really interesting show I enjoyed a lot and still miss sometimes.

For the third judge it’s changed over the years. It was Graham Elliott the first several seasons. Later, baker Christina Tosi became a semi regular judge, usually taking Joe’s place while he handled masterchef Italy.

Then when Joe became a regular again, Aaron Sanchez (whom we know from Food Network) took over and he’d been in every season since.

For the junior edition, Daphne Oz (daughter of Dr. Oz but was also on the short lived ABC food show The Chew along with Carla Hall, who has since become a food network judge on most baking competitions and the now disgraced iron chef Mario Batali) was a regular judge. And in general, all the judges are really good with the kids. They’re all prodigies, clearly, but they’re always looked after when the pressure mounts up. My one little issue is that Daphne has done at least two seasons in the middle of her second or third trimester. She’s still a good judge, but I just find it distracting. It almost felt like Family Guy when Bonnie Swanson had this huge belly for six years until she had her baby. One season is fine but when she shows up for multiple seasons with this large belly, it just makes me think she and her husband have the worst timing.

It did, however, lead to one critical teachable moment in a team challenge. It’s not uncommon in these challenges for food to be sent back because it’s raw or underdone. Daphne was unable to judge a plate of food because it had underdone seafood on it. All the more reason it’s vital to teach kids (and all cooks for that matter) the importance of proper cooking techniques.


Formats and challenges
(Also a fair bit of me longing for the good old days)

Masterchef used to run a lot longer than it does now. They used to have auditions, followed by mini challenges to whittle down the top 50 down to the top 20. Things like coring/slicing apples and dicing onions.
(Fun fact- I learned how to dice an onion from this show).

Nowadays, we either cut out auditions and go right to the top 20 or we do auditions over a few weeks and there’s no subsequent stages beyond that.

The weeks would alternate between mystery box challenges and team challenges. They did away with this but in the earlier years, mystery boxes were followed by elimination tests and team challenges were followed by pressure tests. Now, the mystery box and team challenges would take up the entire hour. Man, I miss the old days…

Mystery box- anyone who’s seen Chopped knows about this concept. The only difference is that for a masterchef mystery box, you’re not required to use EVERY ingredient and the ingredients aren’t quite as weird. Unless of course the whole challenge is weird- a mystery box of offal animal parts, for example.

The top 3 are selected and for the elimination test, they have control over what other people get to cook.
Example- deciding which people get canned crab vs a live crab. It’s always interesting to see which people manage to elevate canned goods to the point you can’t tell the difference or they screw up their live product so badly you’d reduced it to inferior canned quality. It’s one of those chances to put extra pressure on a competitor you consider a rival or you just don’t like very much. Sometimes they’re successful but often times the effort backfires and their target overcomes adversity.

Team challenges- always stressful but fun to watch. Usually it’s the one time people get to leave the kitchen and cook for a group of first responders. One time, they cooked for the cast of Glee (it was Cory Monteith’s last tv appearance before he unexpectedly died of an overdose in 2013). This is where things get super heated. Team captains have expectations placed on their shoulders and they don’t always rise to the challenge. If they don’t make sure people are doing their jobs or they don’t pivot when people are falling short, they often end up being the ones to go home. And again, for those who criticize the leadership but do nothing to alleviate the situation, they’re part of the problem.

Then after team challenges comes the “infamous” (their words, not mine) pressure test. The losing team (or select members of it) have to cook a particular dish, often times a dessert and whoever is the least successful goes home.
It’s interesting when only a few team members have to compete and the captain has to choose. Sometimes they’re given the option to save someone and if they decide to save themselves… oh boy… people do not like that very much. You go down with your ship if you sink it. Then at least once they went to commercial break when the captain was asked who they’d save or have compete, we came back to the show and Gordon or Joe said something like “we appreciate your opinion but it’s not up to you” and they decide who participates.
Most of these involve making a difficult dessert like a soufflé. Or, even better, each of the three judges requests a different dessert and they have to make all three in the time allotted.

Then later in the season, the final 6 do a restaurant takeover at one of Gordon’s restaurants. One time I think it was even Joe’s. They’re each shown how to make 2 appetizers and 2 entrees and Gordon dons his chef’s jacket and does his typical Hell’s Kitchen expediting. Usually they rise to the challenge well but there’s always a few hiccups.
And if anyone so much as forgets where they are and does or says something that disrespects the restaurant, Gordon lets them have it. It’s a little over the top, of course. I’ve seen him flip because one of the chefs mishandled a plate and got fingerprints on it. Usually two chefs cook and the third does plating and is the last line of defense for quality control.

What has since taken the place of elimination and pressure tests is a series of challenges that have since become notorious for the series. The person who wins the previous challenge gets to pick the teams or sometimes has immunity so they don’t have to compete at all.

First- the tag team challenge. Only one chef cooks at a time while the other instructs them on what the next step is. It’s very loud and chaotic. Fun to watch but sometimes just as stressful to watch as it would be to participate.
Usually it’s a platter of food. Whether it’s sushi or street food or three parts of a typical Hell’s Kitchen menu (scallops, beef Wellington and toffee pudding).
Tag team, I’m pretty sure, has been a thing since season 5 so it’s been around for a long time.

Slightly more recent but gaining notoriety all the same- The Wall challenge. Where team mates are separated from each other and they have to coordinate in a way so the judges open their cloches and the plates underneath look identical down to the tiniest details.

Then the final hurdle before making the finale these past few seasons- Cook Alongside Gordon Ramsay.
It’s every bit as terrifying as it sounds. Any time you see him do some sort of cooking demonstration on any of his shows- it’s a thrill to watch. It’s a fine mix of skill, finesse and multitasking.
The two biggest lessons you can learn from any Gordon Ramsay cooking show is communication (which is a topic best saved for the Hell’s Kitchen discussion) and multitasking.
Obviously this takes years of practice and memorizing cooking times… but after playing through Pikmin 4, a franchise where the key to success is mastering the Japanese art of Dandori, I have a better understanding of how difficult that can be. Thankfully in video games there’s a reset button but in real life, organizing your tasks in such a manner where you complete them all proficiently in a limited amount of time, it’s hard. And of course Gordon is so experienced he makes it look like an art form. Some contestants have compared it to seeing Picasso (or some other artist) paint.

With the cook along, people keep up well in the beginning but there’s always a slip up somewhere. The rule is that once Gordon finishes, you have 30 seconds to put the final touches on your plate. Very little room for error. Last season, I think I saw the worst performance of this challenge because it went sideways really quickly. It was a fish dish that had a side that was flambéed to burn off wine. All but one accidentally put the alcohol in the pan with the fish and flambéed their fish.

Then the finale has a three course meal and we have a winner. It used to be a two person finale but since season 7 or 8, there are 3 people in the finale.

Why they made that change- I don’t know but I hate it. A proper finale should always be Mano e Mano, one on one.

Thankfully Hell’s Kitchen only has two kitchens so they can’t pull this nonsense there.


Memorable contestants (for better or worse)


One thing that sorta set masterchef apart from Hell’s Kitchen is that the contestants got along better. Typically. There’s still a few contestants over the years that’ve gotten under my skin and made the show almost unwatchable.

Season three had Krissi- a heavy set woman from Philly- was easily my least favorite in the whole series. Every time she was interviewed in the confessional, she was badmouthing other contestants. Bri was one she picked on a lot. Once she did cook from a wholesome perspective (a vegetarian dish about the mushrooms of the forest) and Krissi rolled her eyes and demanded “oh, give me a break!” She also made a passing comment how she used to eat girls like her “for breakfast” and beat them up in high school. Which pretty much shows you all you need to know about her character. Karma almost did a complete 180 when they had a blind taste test to being someone back and Bri came back but she was still eliminated before Krissi.

I’m aware that people from Philly have a reputation and we all laugh about how they burn down the city when their sports teams lose (or win for that matter). But as someone who grew up in a Philly suburb it’s hard not to feel that people like her give the rest of us a bad name. She was also the single mom of a 10 year old- talk about setting a bad example.

One duo that butted heads for weeks and actually wound up becoming friends were Leslie and Ahran. In retrospect, it was almost a preview of the recent “generations” season because they butted heads over this reason, without all the insults you see on social media nowadays when people attack other generations over opinions they don’t agree with.

But Leslie was genuinely sad when Ahran got eliminated in a later episode because they’d come to a mutual understanding. His attitude about being better than everyone else mellowed out through the course of that season and I went from a hater to a fan after he came around. (He finished in 3rd)

There’ve been few other people over the years who just think they’re better than everyone else… even worse when they’re kept on the show, seemingly, for good tv.

Elizabeth, who finished second to Courtney in season 5 (now she’s a girl from Philly I can behind), wasn’t bad on the show although my sister didn’t like something about her attitude. Courtney’s occupation when she was on the show was “aerial dancer”… apparently this was code for stripper because photos of her from a day on the job circulated on Twitter. And apparently Elizabeth and her husband were among the people circulating these photos and perpetuating online bullying. It was really fucked up. And these were the days BEFORE Elon Musk took over.

The prize the winner received for the show was a trophy, a suitcase of money and their own cookbook. I’m not sure if they’re still doing the cookbook but it was a cool thing back then.

I got Courtney’s and have made some things from it. Including a great barbecue sauce and pasta salad. Since we’d been working a bit more with yeast in recent years, I’d like to try her pizza recipe one of these days.

(I'd also made season one winner, Whitney's chicken parm meatball recipe a couple times... each time, they've come out perfect)

In terms of winners, a lot of my favorites over the years have won but not all of them.

My one favorite who didn’t win and I’m not the only fan incensed by this was Derrick. He was even brought back for an all star season and we were all convinced this was all designed to rectify the fact he didn’t win season 6.

I can’t fault the winner because Dara deserved to be the winner in the first season of the junior edition as much as the actual winner. She was incredible.

But poor Derrick- he’s doing well with his various business ventures (all involving food and I think he’s doing a podcast now). But I’ll still stand by him being the rightful winner of season 6.
If it was a popularity contest, I’m pretty sure Derrick would’ve won hands down. But all of us were also convinced that Chris Daughtry was supposed to win American Idol and he didn’t…. I still have no idea how Taylor Hicks won that year.

One sad story that came out years after his season ending was finalist Josh. A tall black guy around my age with a big heart and a lot of talent. In 2013 he killed himself and had apparently struggled with mental illness his whole life.
Mental illness is such a difficult thing but it’s even more difficult in the black community. (The series “a million little things” discussed this in great detail with one of their characters). I’m still processing Twitch’s suicide- easily one of the last people on this planet I’d expect to read that headline about.

The two winners I remember the most were Luca (a man from Italy who missed out on season 3 and was the series’s first male winner in season 4) and Christine.

Joe’s blatant favoritism for Luca as a fellow Italian might be frowned upon nowadays but it made for good tv back then. I forget which dish it was but once Luca made a mistake and Joe took him aside and whispered “what are you’re doing? This is embarrassing.” If I had to guess it had to do with pasta and Italians take that stuff seriously.

That just reminded me of one thing- Joe doesn’t cook typically and I thought maybe he just didn’t because he’s more of a business man. But he did demonstrate how to make egg yolk ravioli one time. Just goes to show any Italian worth their salt should know how to make pasta from scratch.

A couple challenges over the years had been about making pasta. One, if I remember right, was an elimination challenge where certain contestants were kept out of the room so they wouldn’t see the demonstration on how to make it. And it was one of the trickier pasta shapes- yikes!

I’m pretty sure even casual fans of the series know who Christine is because she’d been brought back numerous times to set challenges and be a guest judge.

She’s a remarkable Vietnamese cook who’s blind. And yeah, the show probably did bank heavily on this narrative for the sake of making good TV but if you saw her overcome everything thrown at her, you’d be too impressed to care.

The greatest challenge she overcame was an apple pie pressure test. She was so genuinely nervous because this was the one thing she couldn’t control. She could only go by the timer and smell. I don’t know if she won the challenge but she received some sweet reassurance from the judges that her pie looked cooked when it came out of the oven.

She also has a great sense of humor. One time as a guest judge she did a mystery box and added “open the drawer and you’ll find a blindfold.” Gordon let this go on for a minute before he stopped the clock and essentially said “take off your blindfolds, we’re not that crazy.”

I think he’d tried this trick again after he showed them how to cut up a chicken blindfolded and decided not to subject them to that. Probably best when there’s a risk of not only them cutting themselves but also salmonella.