MasterChef is all over — for the inaugural season at least (with a record 3.7 million people tuning in to watch, we know they’re going to milk this one for years).
Like any good reality TV show, MasterChef will undoubtedly start to cannibalise itself, trying to reheat the ingredients that made it successful (apologies, it takes more restraint than Crikey has to avoid the food puns); the praise will become over the top, the sentimentality cloying, the croquembouche towers higher and higher.
But until then, what people thought of the original recipe (sorry):
Talk of Julie’s rigged result just the elites sqwalking. The snobbish or conspiratorial nonsense on the sidelines over Julie’s victory is easily eclipsed by the dominant sense of joy and gratitude that such a genuine feel-good show went to air. It had none of the contrived schmaltz of other programs in this “family” category. It involved a group of people who were so genuinely nice that, as the finals heated up, even the contestants seemed just as interested in each other’s well-being as their own chances of victory. — DavidPenberthy, The Punch
Let’s call a shallot a shallot. Seriously can the first winner of MasterChef Australia be someone who could not identify a french shallot, and called it an onion? Look I really like Julie Goodwin, but I must confess tonight I was a tad disappointed when she won to become the series one winner of MasterChef Australia. — Reality Ravings
Oh really! I laughed merrily at Julie saying “I feel like I’ve climbed Mt Everest!” after serving the judges her chicken dish. I could almost hear Sir Edmund Hillary muttering “Bitch, please” from heaven — Jess McGuire, Defamer
Pity the other programming. Truly scorched was 60 Minutes, which paid about $200,000 to secure an interview with lost-and-found bushwalker Jamie Neale, in a failed effort to lure viewers from MasterChef. — Caroline Overington, The Australian
And on Twitter, some of the best comments:
@seeboundy In two & a half years never seen my boyfriend cry… Until julies family came on last night in #masterchef !
@paul_ricketts pressure test should have been blind-tasted, what a joke!
@1azylizzie Won’t watch masterchef until it becomes #vegan friendly.. I have no interest in watching the flesh of innocent creatures get cooked. YUK!
@arakha Dreamt that I was a contestant on Masterchef and another girl stole the last bag of peas, so that I couldn’t make my dish.
I agree that the pressure test should have been blind tested…
I just can’t wait for them to realise that that woman who alsways stand out the front actualy won’t be needed next year.
Yes, indeed – the Masterchef winner had no idea what a shallot was (?) And celebrated chef (and ‘food expert’) George Calombaris had no idea of what exactly Poh’s dish of ‘Hainanese chicken rice’ was? He’d never heard of it? (It’s a very famous Malaysian dish, often enjoyed by many amongst Malaysia’s population of 27 million people). Why. I’m even eating it now…
If you ignore the fact that Julie shouldn’t have made the cut (sorry, punishing) in the first place, she did appear to win on the night. As mentioned, a blind taste test would have been better.
David P’s assessment is right out of la-la land. The show was boiling over with contrivance and describing concerns about the show being rigged as ‘the elites sqwalking’ is a cheap cut of meat. Julie consistently failed all through the finals and in the penultimate test, where appearance was almost important as taste, she presented a plate that was incomplete and ugly but, apparently, tasted good. Go figure?
The final insult was when the judges, well ahead of time, tasted her sorbet and all but recommended she start again. No such advice for Poh who, presumably, was one of David P’s ‘elites’.
It was compelling viewing though especially in the last week but, like the footy, the grand final is often a let down after some compelling preliminaries.
Well, what can I say, am still fuming from the ostensibly rigged final results!!!! No more wasting precious time watching a programme like Masterchef where the judges have no right to judge if they don’t have a clue on any infamous Asian dish other than plain normal home cooked food anyone can try to dish out at home!!!
I am a Singaporean chinese, who lives in UK 10 years so yes, have tasted all the amazing cuisines I can get my hands on having being brought up in a food paradise and am a passionate cook myself. I am very fussy, a perfectionist so presenting of a dish is equally as important as how it taste.
Julie, whose dishes are just plain boring, same old meat with poultry and potato malarky!!! I even mentioned jokingly what she was going to cook before she told the judges and surprise surprise, she has described exactly what I have said!!!! It’s unfair enough the judges chose to the whole chicken as core ingredients. Knowing Julie is great with whole chicken/meat theme whereas Poh finds that hard but still managed to produce such beautiful Hainanese chicken dish. I am appalled, as with the rest of my Asian friends, who knows not anyone can make a real proper Hainanese chicken dish! Instead, stupid judges who has complained about the smell of century egg and have no idea such delicacies existed, went on to say they thought Poh would have presented a more complex dish. Halllloooooo???!! Anyone there….if you are Asian and have sophisticated taste and are good enough to be a judge, you should know that Julie’s dish is 10 times easier than a Hainanese chicken dish cooked well, especially the rice and the 3 exotic sauces accompanying it. Poh also included the soup and one of our fav Pandan cake!!!!! Can’t believe the judges were making fun about the “green” cake!! How uncalled for, totally disgusting! I haven’t found any good cuisines worth telling my friends about in Perth, whereas there’s so many I’ve lost count in Singapore and UK so judges, please don’t embarrass yourselves any further, quit your jobs, you aren’t good enough!!
The normal chicken dish Julie dished out, I’ve cooked so many times when I have guests over and I can assure you it’s easy peasy….with her potatoes again, which indeed she did burn again but I didn’t. She’s always so jittery, irritatingly annoying to watch when she sobs all the time whereas for Poh, like Chris’ said, very sleek, polish, so cool and calm and focused. Julie was nearly eliminated so many times and all those times, everyone thought she should go. But no…she’s still there and even when she didn’t complete her awlful looking dish, she still managed to beat Chris, so what’s the point of having a competition with allocated time? Surely a Masterchef should be able to tell a shallot from an onion in the finals??????!!!!! Julie should have been taken out there and then, no more points for her!!
As for the dessert, come on…..how many times the judges go round to Poh telling her how weird and smelly her dishes looked but when they’re at Julie’s, they always make sure she gets their point, pointing out how her Thai looking dish isn’t Malaysian and how her sorbet is grainy!!! Where’s the advice for Poh??!!! I know she mess up on her sorbet (no judge gave her any advice at all) and the other chocolate stuff but her choc tart was perfect, that alone takes skills and a few steps to make and we can all see it! Look at Julie’s choc tart, no comparison, every judge did mention it’s not good enough, too much pastry and yet, they can overlook this and give her a much higher score??!! How does that work, you all tell me??!!! Julie’s nothing but a fraud and fake and fluke!!!! Poh will go on to be a more successful cook, I’ll bet on it!!
It’s such a let down I was fuming after that and all my friends agreed no point watching such a let down programme when obviously to us all, it’s rigged! Bring on Hainanese chicken rice and that Pandan cake anytime Poh, love all your creative dishes, so different even though they are Asian!