Maste Chef – Inspiring a Love of Food, Cooking AND Brussel Sprouts

Ok – I’ll admit it. I am a fan, in fact, a big fan, of a reality tv show – something I thought I never would be.  I’ve never understood how Big Brother made it to air, cringed during just the promos for The Bachelor and looked on in fear at Survivor, waiting for the day when a contestant was going to kill someone to win a million dollars – or to get a greater share of food while starving on a remote island.

Just when I was giving up on reality tv all together – along comes ‘Master Chef,’ a program all about taking some of Australia’s best home cooks and uncovering in them the potential to be a ‘Master Chef.’  Make no mistake about it – the show is centred on a competition as so many reality tv programs are.  So why is MC different?  Here are just a few of the reasons why.

The host of MC is the lovely Sarah Wilson, below.  Sarah has openly stated she is proud that she is not overly thin and that she will never bend to pressure to be anything other than her natural size.  She is also encouraging other women to have the same positive feelings about their body in ground breaking articles such as ‘Shape Shifting’ which I blogged about here.

The three Master Chef judges are there not because of what they look like or because they are seasoned media stars (only one, George Calombaris, has ever had a small role as an occasional guest on a cooking show), but because they are either talented chefs, namely George and Gary Mehigan, or a food critic in Matt Preston.
 
Now while we are on Matt Preston – he’s just amazing.  Statuesque, big bellied, proud and undoubtedly making cravats fashionable again.  This is a man who dresses for himself and no-one else.  When he talks about food he is also almost hypnotic-like.  He makes even brussell sprouts sound amazing and I hate brussell sprouts.
 
The contestants, have all clearly been chosen to be on the show because they are talented cooks and not because of what they look like.  The diversity amongst them – black, white, gay, straight, big, small, tall and every size and look in between is unmistakeable.  It certainly makes a nice change from the Big Brother or Bachelor crowd who all appear to be so formulaic.  The MC collection of Mum’s, Grandma’s, husbands, beer merchants, info tech consultants, secretaries and teachers from Malaysia, Greece, Italy & Torres Straight lsland is diversity at its best and their sheer passion for food is both inspirational and infectious.

MC appears to be having an even greater influence on young and old alike and not just me, but Australia wide. Cooking schools cannot keep up with the demand for course enrolments.  Speciality cooking stores are seeing utensils fly off the shelves when they appear on the show. The MC website recipe section is the most downloaded site in Australia and to my great joy – children and young people have been so inspired by the show that they want to help Mum and Dad more in the kitchen. This one thing in itself is such a wonderful thing.  Instead of making children afraid of food, worried about their weight or calorie counting at a tender age, MC is igniting Generation Z to have a passion, interest in and  love of food. Long may it reign into their adolescence and adulthood.

An entire generation of people who love food for the life-giving and joyful source it truly is, with fewer eating disorders, calorie restrictions and excessive dieting?  Now that is something I’d like to live to see.

Please come back for another season MC.  ‘Nice’ reality shows that are encouraging, inspiring and family focused are what we need more of right now.  I welcome you into my living room now and at any time in the future.
 
All photo’s courtesy of the Master Chef website.

Tagged as: Children, Cooking, Dieting, Diversity, Eating Disorders, Food, Gary Mehigan, George Calombaris, Master Chef, Matt Preston, Media, Parenting, Real Beauty, Reality TV, Sarah Wilson, Weight

{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }

1 serene bean January 5, 2010 at 6:39 pm

ooh, I'd love to watch MC! But, I'm in America, where we DO have a multitude of wonderful cooking shows and a whole channel devoted to cooking. It is very popular, but nothing on the regular networks (except Hell's Kitchen) is devoted to people performing a talent where they don't have to look a certain way.

Maybe I'll have to check out MC on the internet, watch the episodes… besides, I am a HUGE INXS fan and know Kirk Pengilly competed on it! Now I'll have another great reason to watch… diversity and talent in REAL people!

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