How to Cook

Delia Smith has been commenting on (lamenting?) the British public's lack of cooking skills this week (you can read a Guardian piece on her thoughts here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2013/may/14/delia-smith-masterchef-intimidates-aspiring-cooks). It's an interesting argument actually. Masterchef is a show that has increasingly bugged me for this reason. I caught a few episodes of New Zealand's version when I was home a few weeks ago, and found it hair-pullingly bad. Contestants who - from what we are told - are complete amateurs (self taught home cooks with aspirations to chefdom), are told to make something obscure and then are completely ripped apart by the judges. There's zero constructive criticism, zero intervention and guidance during their cooking - even when the judges can see that the contestants are heading in the wrong direction. It seems to me that if you're going to have a show like this, then in part its main point ought to be to take really good cooks and help them to learn the skills of becoming a chef - teach them. Give them feedback they can use - hell, allow them the opportunity to redo the test and see if they can improve. Treat it like a training exercise. In this way, not only would the contestants stand the chance of becoming the chefs they hope to be, but the viewers can also learn and see how to fix a 'kitchen crisis' (and see that not everyone gets it right all the time). It drives me mad. Of course, constructive (as opposed to aggressive) critiques and feedback don't make for good television or produce crying contestants, and that's probably the issue.

The Australian version of MC had it right I think - a much longer series, episodes and challenges which weren't always all or nothing (high stakes challenges in which someone gets kicked off every time doesn't exactly offer the opportunity for development) and judges who would actually give advice and feedback as the contestants were working. Of course, now they've sold their soul to the devil and are running a wholly unenlightened series called "Girls vs Boys" which promises to do little more than reaffirm established and nonconstructive gender stereotypes, so I think it's safe to say I'm not going to be watching that any time soon.

So I think Delia is right and people don't learn to cook as they ought to anymore and the plethora of cooking shows hasn't remedied this problem. But my question is, do people really want to cook? It'll be interesting to see how well her online cooking school goes...