Delusional
Posted: Fri 18 January, 2008 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Cynicism, Thoughts, Work-related |4 Comments »As I’ve said in previous years, I watch Masterchef when it’s on. (I tend to avoid the ‘Celebrity’ version, but I quite like the normal version)
Now, while I understand that the competitors are non-professional (The Masterchef site says “If you’re over 18, have no formal chef training, and think you’ve got the culinary potential and determination to be the next Gordon Ramsay or Jamie Oliver, then this is the competition for you!“) I do think that a lot of the competitors in the first wave are also truly delusional.
When they do their little interviews at the start, so many of them say “I want to be a chef, I want to feed people” and all that guff, believe they’ve got the potential to win the competition, but they’re still working as merchant bankers, solicitors or whatever. Even more amusing, when you see the ones who bang on about how great they are, and how they’re going to win the entire thing, you can predict that they’re the ones who will sod it up in the first round, and be off before we’re halfway through the heat.
But if they’re so great, and so convinced of their greatness, I don’t understand why they don’t make the effort for themselves, and do some work in a pub or hotel kitchen.
If it were me, and I wanted to aim for being a Masterchef (or even being on it) I would start off by taking on part-time work in a local (or near-local) pub or restaurant, so I could learn about cooking professionally, and know whether I could actually do what I wanted to or not.
But maybe I’m just more realistic and practically-minded, rather than just assuming I’m going to win a competition on TV.
What? You mean you think people should WORK to get what they want?? Goodness sake, where have you been? It’s 2008, you get things handed to you on a plate just for being on TV…
Yeah, I know, I’m some kind of dinosaur. Lylosaurus, or somesuch.
And I’m aware that I should “know better” in ’08, but there we go, I still think people should work to do something if they really want it, rather than be on a TV show.
*shrug*
When I was a contestant (1993), things were very different. There were no 18-24 year olds as there often seem to be today (and there is no way you’ve got enough expertise/experience of food at that age to be a serious contender), and people could actually cook – we were tested in advance (written application, written test on basics, pre-rounds at a regional catering college). We also had very restricted budgets for ingredients, meaning you had to know what you were doing.
The barrister-boy and city banker types make me laugh because they clearly have no idea how hard working in a professional kitchen is. More like £5.52 an hour than the £552 an hour they’re used to, too. Which I suspect is why they want to do it the TV way rather than the hard way.
I do wish they’d get some new presenters. That pair are boring and past their sell-by date. Rapidly becoming a pair of DOM too – see the lewd looks they give the bright young females.
ive been watching masterchef was watching it wednesday 3 of the contestents cooked raw food, how the hell did the manaed to get to that stage in the 1st place, i think i could deffo do better myself