I don’t think we need a full week focused on special diets. I know these stats are out of date but according to Wikipedia: “According to a 2010 Newspoll survey, 5% of Australians identify themselves as vegetarians, with 2% actually eating a diet defined by the survey as vegetarian”. Why would they want an entire week dedicated to such a small percentage of the population on a show for foodies? Maybe a one off vegetarian challenge but not a week of it.
Also given the amount of crazy vegan protesters trying to cause a scene at the challenge I attended at South Melbourne Market, I can’t see them doing any vegan inspired challenges anytime soon.
Green team were mare out to be struggling at first, then seemed to get back on track, they made a good dish, BUT they lost all the maple syrup (core ingredient).
By the same token they shouldn’t use any exotic ingredients or themes. The number of Australians who eat truffles or caviar or quail eggs or whatever is probably something like 0.0001% yet those ingredients are featured regularly.
The number of vegetarians has risen dramatically in the last few years and you have to remember that our version of the show is not just produced for Australia. For example, close to half of Indians are vegetarian.
I am in Europe at the moment and there is an active shift here towards eating less meat. It’s not about cutting all meat out, just having one or two days each week when you eat something different.
And most importantly, it would be hilarious to see the contestants lift up their mystery boxes and be presented with an array of meat-substitutes that they have to work with. The potential for drama and stress would be huge and that’s what the show is really about.
Just because your a meat eater… its a part of the industry. You must have vegan and vegeterian options on your menu. Food can be interesting without meat and meat products.
I’m sad that Benita has now gone,she was the oldest contestant in this group ,also the oldest contestant since about Season 5 or 6.Good on her for being brave enough to try out for the show and being in the Top 24
I was also disappointed by Benita’s exit. She paid dearly for the mistakes she made this week: setting the wrong dish in the team relay challenge, and left her prawn broth unattended in tonight’s challenge. She was eliminated basically since her four rival dishes had some components which were tasty and demonstrated cooking techniques more clearly.
Why is it not normal? Who determines what is normal and what is not? And if its not normal per se why should anyone dictate that this shouldn’t be broadcast on mainstream tv. I’m sorry I find some of your posts entertaining and sometimes they have substance but if you are suddenly condeming people for not being normal you need to have a serious look at yourself.
Humans have eaten meat since our ancestors first walked this earth. If a pattern of human behaviour established over hundreds of thousands of years doesn’t display what is “normal” to you in any way, then I’m not sure what does.
Normal: “Conforming to a standard; usual, typical, or expected” or “of the sort or kind that is expected as usual, ordinary, or average”.
Is it typical or usual that humans eat meat? Er…yes. Anyway, my point is we don’t need a whole week of vegan propaganda on this show. It’s insufferable enough as it is.
It is a FOODIE show that promotes restaurant quality dishes. The ingredients that you mention are only used on the odd occasion and we don’t have any entire weeks focused on it. In almost every single challenge (unless a protein is a core ingredient) the teams have the opportunity to cook vegetarian if they really want too as well. In that light I just don’t think a strictly vegetarian week is very appealing. Like I said a vegetarian themed task or challenge is fine but not a week of it.
A week of vegetarian would be too much and vegan wouldn’t align with their ‘premium food show’ ethos. Plus, all of the judges love anything with butter too much.
Ottolenghi week might see more vegetarian challenges, however.
MasterChef Australia is about to get a sugar rush, when Melbourne’s Queen of Chocolate, Kirsten Tibballs, kicks off Sweet Week tonight at 7.30pm on TEN and WIN Network.
One of Australia’s most successful pastry chefs, the Victorian chocolatier (pictured left) stops by the MasterChef kitchen with a mystery box challenge that will make the home cooks’ mouths water.
But things take an interesting turn when the contestants’ take to their mystery box with a mallet.
Then, two-time winner of Asia’s pastry chef awards, Janice Wong, treats the contestants to a display of her edible art – a spectacular wall of over 1,000 hand-made flowers that glow in the dark – to inspire them to create a winning invention test dish of their own.
THis is the first episode I have watched this year. Although the desserts looked great I feel their are a lot of negatives about this season and the contestants aren’t one of them.
Firstly, I think the judges have become to repetitive and seem a little ‘big for their boots’. I don’t find them as likable as they were 4-5 years ago.
Secondly, the editing needs some work. Everything is predictable. You could tell who would be chosen in the mystery box and it was quite obvious who would win that challenge.
Can’t see how delaying it by half an hour is going to help when The Voice and House Rules start at 7pm. If viewers don’t want to watch Modern Family at 7pm, they’ll find one of the other two shows ad not switch back.
Maybe they’ll benefit from running later when people might switch off Sunday Night and 60 Minutes for both running Cocaine Cassie stories.
@pelican last Sunday it rated 734k. I think one of the main reasons was because of that figure, and that I believe someone said that the later half rates more than the first half of the program.
