How to Win a Cooking Show

I don’t know about you, but I am a complete sucker for cooking competitions. These days, at lunchtime, I have been following the Australian My Kitchen Rules—a cooking competition where 12 pairs of contestants (spouses, siblings or friends) face off against the other 11 teams, and the two teams that perform poorly compete in a sudden death episode where one pair is chucked out. The contestants prepare three-course meals—seared scallops followed by herb crusted lamb or slow cooked pig’s cheeks, and desserts such as poached pears and mascarpone ice- cream. Instead of cooking along, I eat along with the two judges, Manu and Pete, and imagine that I too am sampling those courses. My husband and some friends wonder how I can watch a cooking competition—isn’t it like watching grass grow? They ask how I can predict a winner since unlike a singing competition or a sport, one can’t taste the food. Well, imagination plays a big role as do the judges’ critique at the end of each episode.

Food sociologists would explain my behaviour in several ways: ‘an ethic of self-improvement’ (not sure since according to my husband, it is not evident in my cooking), and ‘wanting to learn practical cookery skills and tasty flavour pairings’ (yes), ‘instruction in a vocabulary that suggests gastronomical knowledge of techniques (sous vide) and critical terms of art (for example, acidic balance)’ (perhaps). Today, the television audience includes not just cooking enthusiasts but also those who love to eat. The Food Network, for instance, was one of the first to tap into a general hunger for reading about and describing food. I have a cousin who, on creating a salad containing symmetrically sliced avocado pieces placed in a perfect circle, uploads its photograph on a page she has started on Facebook with other such enthusiasts.

The cooking competitions of today have departed significantly from the format of a traditional cooking show which was ‘see how I cook and you can cook along too’. As television sociologist Tasha Oren points out, the present day primetime shows have adopted a form of narrative suspense, conflict, humiliation and failure. Competitor- chefs/homemakers/bankers etcetera, who race around in utter panic to complete each ‘challenge’ under strict time- limits, are subjected to harsh criticism or a degrading dress- down by a panel of judges, and then, one by one, are dismissed with a gravely intoned catchphrase: “you have been chopped/eliminated, please take off your apron”.

From a story—like EM Forster’s classic example of a simple narration of events, ‘the king died and the queen died’—the competitive cooking show format has moved to a plot: ‘the king died and then the queen died of grief’. The viewer is asking a different question of the plot: Why does it happen? A plot contains a chain of cause and effect relationships. A story, as Ronald Tobias writes in 20 Master Plots, requires only the curiosity to know what will happen next. Plot requires the ability to remember what has already happened, to figure out the relationships between events and people and to try and project the outcome. Apply this to My Kitchen Rules. Why are the twins marking down the well-travelled friends? Because they are rivals. They had a series of disagreements in previous episodes and that makes a viewer want to find out which pair will triumph over the other. Similarly, in MasterChef US, an urban gardener had a running feud with a fellow contestant and both made it to the top three.

The appeal of MasterChef, My Kitchen Rules and other competitions that involve homemakers, hairdressers, engineers, students, farmers, and so on is that these are ordinary people who have been picked to participate in an extraordinary event. The show takes an everyday activity, cooking, and transforms it into a game, and invites us to imagine ourselves as stars in that show.

To win in such a show, think of the cook-off as a plotted script. Books on master plots or writing a compelling story invariably mention an arc or a trajectory in the life of a character. The beginning—the set-up—needs a problem that must be solved by the character. What does your character want? Happiness or misery? In cooking competitions— the answer is simple—the character wants to win because the money will enable her to realise a dream: set up a restaurant or enter the food industry that will help her look after her family, stand on her own feet, etcetera. “I am doing this for my children—want them to be proud of me, and follow their own dreams,” said the homemaker duo in season five of MKR who went on to win the $ 250,000.

The middle part of the arc involves the character pursuing a goal but running into problems. Aristotle calls these events reversals, which create tension and conflict. The contestant is in tears because her soufflé has not risen, or has forgotten to make a key element in a terribly complicated dish, or has thrown away the stock. This is where the camera pauses and allows the viewer to savour the contestant’s grief. Then comes recognition—an irreversible emotional change that is brought about by the event. An interesting character demonstrates grit and doggedness by making another batch of stock, or attempts to create the key element. It is at this moment the viewer identifies with her and begins to root for her. There are no miracles, the deus ex machina of the Greek plays where Zeus or Athena or Apollo took care of the dilemma. The final stage contains the climax, the falling action and the denouement. This is where the judges critique the dishes, and select the character as one of two who might be sent home. Then comes the save: “go up to the gantry because at least you prepared the element unlike your fellow contestant who gave up and plated the dish without it.”

It is easier to identify the arc in a novel or a TV series. The heroine is misunderstood or is struggling to overcome an infirmity and in the process of showing the frailties as well as her strengths, a good writer establishes a connection between the viewer and the character. Despite not being a fan of Priyanka Chopra in her Bollywood films, the writers in Quantico (and PC executed it well) succeeded in episode 1 in establishing her as a kick-ass, independent maverick who makes her own rules, and that made most viewers connect with her as an interesting character.

In a cooking show too, it helps if you can come across as creative, dogged, willing to take risks that pay off, and more importantly, may also fail. When you fail, you get face-time on television because the sudden death or black apron episode will feature only you and three or four others. Which brings us to…

Rule 1: Be interesting. Which means, be passionate about something. In this case, producing flavourful food.

Rule 2: Be bold but not too bold.

Rule 3: Dig a hole, jump into it, shovel the mud over your head, and—this is very important—dig your way out of it. Viewers want drama. They want to see someone teeter on the abyss and rescue themselves. Cry but, like the runner-up in the previous season’s MasterChef Australia, say it is because you “care so much” for the craft and flavour of food. Show how hard you can work to achieve your goal. MasterChef Australia winner Billy had two or three burners with different elements of a Heston Blumenthal recipe going on simultaneously while our Billy grew a couple of extra arms to stir the pots.

Rule 4: Don’t bloom too early or show off your technical skills. Sara in MasterChef Australia was a favourite of Matt Preston but there was too much skill and very little drama. So the camera and viewers stopped following her. She faded out in the last part of the competition.

Rule 5: Show that you are learning; you are plodding uphill. Plate badly, and then as the show progresses, arrange the ingredients on your plate exquisitely. Make sure you have a flaw that could be fatal.

Rule 6: This applies to the MKR type competitions where you have to host other contestants in your home. Produce delicious food or at least one course that evokes a ‘yum’ from the judges. If you consistently put up terrible flavour pairings, and disagree with the judges who say that the sauce for a roasted duck was exquisite, then be prepared to say goodbye tout suite.

Rule 7: Be competitive without being overly aggressive or unpleasant. If you are aggressive, tone it down towards the end otherwise viewers will want you to fail in the grand climax. You are cooking food, and food has to be infused with love, not hate.

The audience prefers a character who struggles against an almost-fatal flaw, and vanquishes it to win the prize. They want to see their life played out, but with a happy ending.

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