The perfect ingredients for good tv

I am beginning to feel that I was hard done by as a child. I didn’t think this until I commited to watching Junior Masterchef over the past few weeks.
As a youngster I was encouraged to bake. Flour, eggs, cooking apples were a regular feature in our kitchen as I churned out rock buns and apple tarts. But I was never shown how to use a blowtorch, fillet a chicken, shallow fry or create anything that had a fancy French sounding name.
I made children’s food and I loved it. These Aussie wonder kids, however, have left me feeling very inadequate. It’s not just the fact that I don’t have some sort of ethnic heritage to draw on that has left me feeling inadequate, it’s the fact that I have realised that not only are my cooking skills, which I thought were pretty good, seriously lacking, I also have a serious lack of knowledge about the kinds of food that are available.
These kids were able to guess 20 ingredients in a pizza. They were listing herbs, veggies and all sorts of things that I had never even heard of and I have literally 20 years on one of the contestants. Although Junior Masterchef has left me a little dejected and in need of some therapy it has also left me, to quote Charlie Sheen, “winning!”
What a programme. Okay, what can be so great about watching a gaggle of prepubescent children messing around in the kitchen? That they weren’t messing they around, they were creating culinary dishes that were putting the guest chefs to shame.
Watching Junior Masterchef was better for your mood than any E True Hollywood Story or Extreme Makeover Home Edition. These kids were just normal everyday kids with extraordinary ability in the kitchen. They really encouraging to each other and the judges were all very encouraged in a non-patronising way. It was a feast to watch and the dishes were amazing. These nine and 10-year-olds were producing restaurant quality food every challenge and even managed to compete and cook for paying customers.
The real treat was seeing just how well they worked under pressure. They never gave up, never made excuses. If it didn’t work, it was hands up I made a mistake and when one person won over another they gave each other a hug in the spirit of the competition.
The highlight was watching 11-year-old Jack score three 11 out 10s for his pear perfection and being told that it was better than the visiting chef’s version.
Ordinary Masterchef can be a little boring because adults are more reluctant to experiment, make excuses more and turn on the waterworks for no reason. However, with the kids, they are straight-up all the time. They want to win but they won’t do it at the expense of a competitor.
I think it’s a great show that will encourage other young people to get involved in cooking at home. It is a fantastic skill that will not only encourage a greater knowledge of food but could also encourage young people to cook and eat more healthily. If they can cook from a young age, they’ll be less likely to reach for the fast food option when they know their food is more delicious.
We all know the rhyme from when we were young: rich man, poor man, begger man, thief, which will I marry? In today’s recession, it seems you can go from being a rich man to a poor man in the blink of an eye.
However, despite the gloom and doom of the newspapers and the cuts there seems that there is life in the old dog yet and Éireann’s fine people have not given up on her quite yet. This can be seen in at least two of the programmes on RTÉ. Dragon’s Den has started with another series and while one contestant did seem to think that his invention of what was basically a scissors would revolutionise the world, other’s had more practical ideas.
There has been a replacement in the Den in the form of Norah Casey from the publishing world. The first few episodes have been the usual fair-some excellent ideas, some rubbish but, as always, it has been enjoyable stuff. Tune in on Sunday nights at 9.30pm on RTÉ One for all the highs, lows and fiery banter.
The other show which shows that in spite of all the bad times there are thriving businesses in Ireland is the imaginatively named The Business, hosted by former TD and economist George Lee. This is basically a television version of his radio show that sees him travelling around the country visiting and meeting local businesses.
This is not ground-breaking programme making. In many ways it’s a programme by numbers but that does not mean it is any less effective. It does a great job. It showcases small business and the fighting spirit of this nation. It is big business that landed us in this mess and it is small businesses that will get us out. Now whatever you think about Lee and his flirtation with politics, he does know economics and he can do a good job at presenting this kind of show.
He does a fairly good piece-to-camera and he can do a really good job a getting information about business from people and giving people a platform for presenting it. It is fascinating to see the growth and diversity in businesses around the country and the commitment that is being shown to these ventures. It is also interesting to watch the cautious way in which these business owners are allowing growth and the bank investment in them.
These are exciting times in this country and shows like these allow us to refocus on the good rather than the bad. All we need to Junior Masterchef and we’ll be back in the emotional black in no time. Am I being a bit optimistic?