It's the first elimination of the season and it's all about sober backstories and food dreams. So whose nightmare is it about to become? Ben Pobjie sums it up.
You can talk all you want about inspiration, heartwarming journeys and the skillful use of a hibachi, but when you get down to it, the great reality has one thing: make people cry. And tonight is the night when MasterChef 2024 really kicks into high gear, as tonight is the night of the first elimination, when the first contestant is sent home to carry the title of 'number one loser' forever.
The contestants arrive to find that, sadly, the producers have done it again: a projector shines their own food dreams onto a black sheet for them to read. It's a poignant moment when we realize that a person's dreams are about to be crushed for our entertainment.
The audience's salivary glands go into overdrive as the fragrance of impending failure reaches our nostrils. The challenge is to create a dish that represents the chef's dream of food. The least impressive dish will see its maker sent home to contemplate the inadequacy of its own aspirations.
It immediately turns into a ten-step backstory battle. Juan opens up with stories about growing up in Argentina with nine siblings and asthma. Josh returns the favor, winning the audience's sympathy with his inability to pronounce “fondant” and then revealing his true tragedy: he's Tasmanian.
Sumeet reveals that he is making three dishes. Jamie asks why he's making her life so complicated. Sumeet tells him that fish must swim, birds must fly, and Sumeet must make unrealistic amounts of butter chicken. Puzzled by this exchange, Jamie approaches Mimi and teaches her how to dismember a crab, thus fulfilling her dream of eating it whole.
Snezana reveals that the dish she's making to represent her culinary dream is… bread and butter. Frantically, he rewinds the tape to see if he really said that. Yes. It is making bread and butter. Uh Yes. wow I suppose.
In stark contrast, David's food dream is to own a restaurant in which
the food is, like, really good. Poh and Andy agree with him that making really good food is a great goal to pursue. David remembers his work in cancer research, an extremely important job that he hopes to leave behind forever so he can spend his life raising pumpkins or whatever. He's taking chances with unusual flavor combinations, but he's confident that his scientific knowledge will serve him well: analysis of the ingredients shows that his dish is technically non-lethal.
With 20 minutes to go, steam fills the room. Sumeet mingles, Josh prepares his meat, and Khristian whispers sweet nothings into a loaf of bread's ear. The kitchen is a hive of activity and the contestants, without exception, have descended into terrifying madness.
Elimination is approaching and everyone is trembling with fear that they may be about to suffer the fate of everyone: having to see their family again. “I don't want to state the obvious,” Andy says, but he does it anyway.
Time is almost up as Justin slurps his squid, so to speak, and Sumeet realizes she doesn't have time to roll the dough. Luckily, she's making butter chicken, which doesn't have pasta, so it should be fine. Josh cuts into his steak and finds it raw, which upsets him despite the fact that during the first week the judges seemed to prefer raw meat to anything cooked.
The judges count down from ten in French, in a case of political correctness gone mad. The cook is done. Now, unfortunately, the tasting must begin.
David serves his pumpkin soup with chocolate cream and puts on a straitjacket. The judges say they like it because it doesn't look cool. “It's good to confuse people,” says Poh, confused.
Khristian then serves a panini, which means “sandwiches” in Italian, a testament to English speakers' refusal to recognize plurals. “I like your energy,” Jamie says, by which he means, “I hate your sandwich.” Nat intrigues the judges with her noodles, while Steve wows them with his duck.
It's Josh's moment of truth. The judges think his steak and three vegetables are absolutely beautiful. In fact, the only minor criticism they can make of the dish is that it tastes bad, but they assure you that doesn't matter much on MasterChef.
Snezana serves her bread and butter. The judges look at it and can't deny that it's bread, and butter too. Note that these are three different types of butter, all of which look weird enough for the judges to enjoy. The bread and butter is delicious and doesn't contain any raw steak, so it's a winner.
Harry serves an “ocean packet”, which is what he calls fish. Poh congratulates him by insulting his mental health. Sofia thinks it's great how she put the food on a plate and the food tastes good. Steph steps forward, whoever Steph is. Her crab paste isn't very good, but it wasn't enough in this episode to be eliminated. The same goes for Sue, whose duck ragout is basically okay, and Alex, whose lamb is good but the flatbread is disgusting. Lourdes has made a cake, which is a bit shocking, but although it tastes good, Poh doesn't care.
Sumeet serves the butter chicken, which she's paired with pasta and cheese toast for reasons best known to herself. Jean-Christophe criticizes his lack of imagination. Andy doesn't want to offend her, but tells her this isn't a business audition – putting her resume in the sauce was a misstep. All the judges are disappointed that Sumeet didn't do anything really brilliant like chocolate pumpkin or bread and butter.
We arrive at Juan, who has brought his own theme song. Jamie makes a pun about Juan's name and then the judges taste her pies and declare them, like Keira Knightley in Love Actually, perfect.
All that's left is for Mimi, Jonathan, Lily and Lachlan to get a full five seconds of screen time between them, before James pursues his dream of one day eating what he's allowed inside a fish and chip shop fried, dishes their stuffed squid. Andy cuts the squid. He is confused. Has he discovered an ancient treasure map, swallowed by squid centuries ago? No, the squid is raw. And squid is disgusting enough when cooked. Also the flavors are too big and interfere with Andy's fantasies about marine life.
Time for the final judgment, and the difficult task of deciding who has most revolted the judges of this competitive field. The three worst are Josh with his raw steak, James with his raw squid, and Sumeet with his raw disregard for basic dignity. In the end, James' squid is the worst sin against nature, and so he must return home to a life of sleepless nights with visions of squid swimming before his eyes, taunting him with sarcastic tentacle gestures . His exit from the show is almost as poignant as it would have been had we had any idea who he was before tonight.
Tune in tomorrow when Jamie shows off disgustingly.
