This was published 7 years ago
There's a reason MKR contestants have short careers in the food industry
By Debi Enker
What happens to cooking competition contestants after the bright lights of the TV contest go out? A possible path is discernible with Destination Flavour (SBS, Thursdays 8pm), one of the few fresh offerings served up by free-to-air TV over summer. Adam Liaw's culinary travel series finds the 2010 MasterChef winner in Singapore for the fourth season of his series. His show explores cultures through their cuisines, and this destination has a strong family connection for the host.
As on previous expeditions, which have taken in Japan, Scandinavia, Australia and New Zealand, the cherubic Liaw proves a genial guide. He radiates a gracious curiosity about, and appreciation for, the people, places and food that he encounters. In Singapore, he learns how to make Hainanese chicken rice from an elderly relative, pries tendons from the legs of a black chicken before poaching it, and devises a banquet that aims to be a salute to Singapore.
Adam Liaw: One of an impressive squad of MasterChef Australia alumni who have carved out careers in the food industry.Credit: Edwina Pickles
Liaw has grown into an engaging TV presenter, productively shedding the superfluous co-hosts that featured in the 2014 Down Under series. TV chefs bring their own particular style and tone to their travels: Anthony Bourdain is a maverick bad boy; the Hairy Bikers are exuberant fun-seekers; Jamie Oliver is a boyish and irrepressibly enthusiastic evangelist. For his part, Liaw is sweet, calm and receptive, a bit of a happy buddha with a man bun, strolling down endlessly illuminating roads.
His development as a TV personality, author and newspaper columnist sees him joining an impressive squad of MasterChef Australia alumni who have carved out careers in the food industry. Since its 2009 debut season, when Julie Goodwin faced off in the final against Poh Ling Yeow, MasterChef has served up keen amateur cooks who really know their way around a kitchen and hope to use the contest as a springboard to a new, food-focused chapter in their lives.
Goodwin transformed into a media force and best-selling cookbook author. Yeow was tapped to host TV shows and has since turned her life and home in Adelaide, and the launching of a cafe, into fodder for her series. They're not isolated cases. In cities around the country, Reynold Poernomo, Andre Ursini, Philip Vakos and Samira El Khafir have been running restaurants reflecting their culinary tastes and talents. Marion Grasby has a food range; Hayden Quinn has produced a cookbook and co-hosted Surfing the Menu: Next Generation; Justine Schofield has a daytime cooking show.
Their trajectories appear in striking contrast to that of the country's other popular cooking contest, My Kitchen Rules. Last year's winners, "Spice Sisters" Tasia and Gracia Seger, have launched a line of sauces and cater Indonesian-themed dinners at pop-up restaurants. Ash Pollard briefly grabbed attention as a semi-finalist on Dancing with the Stars. But bookshop shelves, supermarket aisles and TV schedules are not exactly inundated with former MKR contestants making their marks in the food industry.
While there's no doubting MKR's popularity – it's regularly the most-watched series in the country – the current promos for its eighth season suggest a key ingredient in its appeal. And it's not cooking skill. It's conflict. The food is a side dish.
MKR runs on antagonism and the way that Seven is trying to tantalise us with morsels from the upcoming season plays to that thrust. As well as the introduction of "Angry, Angry Man" Tyson, the ads are ripe with poisonous glares, icy stares and insults. The drip-feed of promotion promises a sizzling showdown, revealing "Mighty Mums", a seafood king and the "Fiery Foodies", and promises "Australia's biggest rivalry". Oh yes, and just to balance that out, there's a bit of flirting.
MKR generally casts some "villains". Portrayed as arrogant, they're often folk who have travelled, eaten at Michelin-starred establishments and fancy themselves as connoisseurs. (See: Gold Coast couple Peter and Gary, 2012; Perth BFFs Chloe and Kelly, 2014; and Melbourne lawyers Gianni and Zana, 2016). It wants competitors who will fight and bitch and sneer and snipe. It wants tension, both within the duelling duos and between them.
Given its consistently high ratings, the recipe evidently works. But when the MasterChef judges note, with paternal pride and a just touch of patronisation, that their show is all about the food, the post-show trajectories of the contestants suggest that the distinction has an element of truth.
What's emerged over the years from these popular competitions that share a food focus is how differently they operate. A notable number of contestants, like former lawyer Liaw, enter the MasterChef fray with the hope of changing the direction of their lives. Maybe those who sign up to face Pete, Manu, Colin and whoever the mystery judge is on MKR just wanna have a bit fun in the limelight and feel the heat of a TV kitchen. But it's clearly a different kettle of fish.