Masterchef Recap: A Persistent Vegetative State

Tonight, Yotam Week continues…with a team challenge no one saw coming. That’s what the voiceover guy reckons anyway: the implication is that it’s an incredibly left-field, utterly unexpected challenge. But all it is is making vegetarian food for meat-eaters. Which is…you know…mildly diverting I guess. I admit I didn’t see it coming, but it’s not like I see any of these challenges coming. It’s not the maddest thing this show has ever done.

“We’re definitely in the heart of Melbourne now,” says Samuel, as the amateurs walk through the heart of Melbourne. No wonder they call him the Human Apple Maps.

Eliza confesses that when she thought of what they could be doing with Yotam, she didn’t think of a butcher challenge, so she’s (more than usually) confused. As are we all, because the butcher’s shop they’re in seems to be filled with bottles of wine, eggs and tomatoes. The cameraman is going out of his way to avoid showing any meat on screen at all. So the irony is kind of lost.

George wanders through the amateurs, tapping them on the shoulder and saying, “Blue, green, blue, green, blue, green, blue, green”. Once he’s satisfied this peculiar manifestation of his obsessive-compulsive disorder, they separate into teams. The green team will be captained by Samuel, because he’s the tallest. The blue team will be captained by Callan, because he’s the worst possible choice for captain.

Their task is to create a vegetarian feast for ten “meat-loving diners”, which is a pretty vague categorisation. “Your job today is to convince them is that a vegetable-based meal is just as delicious, just as mouth-watering, as a beautiful steak, a lamb roast, or a pork chop,” says George, and that’s obviously a pretty big ask, because it’s not. This challenge is literally impossible to complete. They might as well give up now, but they’re a reckless bunch and so they rush off to start planning their meals. “Our team needs to start strategising,” says Sarah, several hours later in the studio, because it’s important we viewers have a very explicit narration so we understand that before making a meal, cooks like to decide what meal they’re going to make.

“I’m feeling nervous today,” says Callan, but you wouldn’t guess it from his red flustered face and halting speech. The blue team decides to make a bunch of things with names like “pot stickers” and “confit” so I’ve got no idea what they’re talking about.

“As soon as I hear it’s a vegetarian feast, I get this inspiration for carrots,” says Sarah, but there’s bad news: carrots have already been invented. She’s not being as original as she thinks. She begins marinating carrots, which is a horrible waste of time that could be spent marinating something good, like meat.

Eloise is disturbed by Callan’s quietness. She wants to know what he wants her to do, but faced with the unprecedented task of talking to a woman, Callan finds himself at a loss. He begins fingering some leaves to soothe his nerves.

Samuel describes his menu to Yotam and George, and George shouts “YUM YUM YUM” at him until he gets bored and wanders off. Yotam and George turn to Callan and ask him what he’s making. Callan says they’re making kibbeh. They ask him what kind of kibbeh. Callan doesn’t know. Callan’s never heard of kibbeh before, he just panicked and starting making noises with his mouth and by accident one of the noises sounded like a real food and now they’re pressing him and the pressure is too much and he has to put his head in a paper bag.

Callan explains his approach to captaining is different: “I’m not going to scream and shout,” he says. Other things he’s not going to do: give instructions, make decisions, talk to his team, know what food he’s making, be aware of his surroundings, remain conscious.

Diana takes her plums out of the oven and finds them a bit tart, so she’s wondering what she can balance them with. A good thing to balance them with would be meat.

Ray is going to use quinoa with his carrots, so the blue team is even more stuffed than they thought. Callan says Ray’s dish is a bit of a gamble, and it’s true. In fact, having Ray present in a kitchen at all is a bit of a gamble. To prepare his dish, Ray puts some grated carrot in a pot with some big lumps of butter and peers at it intently while slowing poking at it. It’s possible he’s still doing this right now.

Nicole is making dumplings, which excites her because dumplings are very close to heart. In fact they’re lodged in her chest cavity between two ribs, and she urgently needs surgery before they move and cause a fatal haemorrhage.

Meanwhile Arum is burning himself with eggplant.

The green team seems to be going very well except for the fact that they aren’t cooking any meat and everything they make will taste awful. But at least they’re proceeding efficiently with their awful food, in contrast to the blue team, which continues, tragically, to be captained by Callan. Ray is still slowly, methodically, poking his carrot and butter. Only Ray can know exactly what he hopes to achieve by this: it’s possible he’s trying to summon an Elder God.

“Callan, where’s your voice?” George demands. “Lost it,” says Callan, making a rookie error by outing himself as a liar. Callan asks Michelle, who has up till now been sleeping under a bench, to cook some vegetables, which is a fairly canny move when making a vegetarian feast.

Callan has gone mad with power and is adding more and more dishes to the blue team’s feast. Eloise is freaking out wondering whether a violent coup needs to be launched against the Callan junta. Her flatbreads risk not being ready in time, and if they’re not, her vengeance will be horrific.

Meanwhile the green team is just getting on with stuff. A theme is starting to develop: the theme of the green team calmly cooking food and the blue team sweating and having conniptions.

Ben pulls his beetroots out of the oven and finds they have shrunk, which is a more common problem for young men than is often depicted in the popular media. On the upside, Eloise claims her dough is looking good, and has said “flaky and crispy” for the eightieth time today. But she hasn’t started her yoghurt flatbread, which sounds like a good thing but she thinks it’s a bad thing.

On the green team Sam is making flatbread too. He explains carefully what flatbread is — it’s basically bread that is flat. Tamara is rolling out the flatbread, and like everything else she has ever done, this makes her ecstatically happy. She is so grateful for the simple gift of flatbread.

Trouble brews as the green team’s hotplate fails to cook the flatbread. Yotam comes over to have a look, make some vague noises and then not help in any way, like he does with everything. “If we can’t pull this together, I’m really concerned we’re going into elimination,” says Tamara, a prospect which comes dangerously close to almost making her slightly less than overjoyed for a second.

Gary suddenly appears from nowhere and starts yelling at the teams to hurry up. He hasn’t been there all day, he should pull his frigging head in.

On the blue team Eloise has burnt a flatbread. Yotam wanders past. “Oh you’ve burnt a flatbread,” he says, and dodders away. George starts yelling at Eloise to plate up and Eloise tells him to go fuck himself, but only in my head. In real life she says, “Yes George,” like some kind of robot.

With seven minutes to go, Diana is still fiddling with her haloumi. Her plums remain slightly tart, but she crosses her fingers that the meat-eaters don’t mind the odd dash of tart.

Matt arrives, fresh from his shiatsu session, and demands to know what the fuck is going on. The other chefs fill him in. He doesn’t want the diners to finish their meal and go for a burger on the way home, but bad news Matt: all of them are going to do that.

The green team’s flatbreads are inconsistent, unlike the blue team’s Ray, who is still obsessively nudging his carrots. But there’s no time to worry about consistency or Ray’s descent into madness, because time is up. Callan is happy because his dishes look good, and “Yotam says you eat with your eyes”. Callan is maybe too young to have learnt that every chef on the planet says you eat with your eyes. Yet every doctor disagrees.

The meat-lovers arrive. Several of them seem to be American, which seems unfair. “The team that serves the least impressive feast today will go into elimination,” says Samuel: did they accidentally edit a grab from the start of the show in here? We already know this, Samuel.

Callan describes all his team’s dishes to the diners in the manner of someone delivering bad news to Ivan the Terrible. Meanwhile the judges pause their endless argument over how to pronounce Yotam’s name to taste the blue team’s feast. The soundtrack swells upward to indicate that against all odds (ie Callan and Ray) the blue team has somehow not ruined everything.

The green team impresses also, but both teams have fallen short with their breads, proving true the old adage: “both teams have fallen short with their breads”. Also George thinks the compote on the haloumi is too wet, triggering his aquaphobia. And as was foreshadowed by Diana’s obsession, the plums were too tart.

“Who needs meat?” asks Gary. It’s edited to suggest he’s asking rhetorically, but you can tell everyone raised their hands after he said it.

Judging time. “I know within myself that we’ve done a cracking job,” says Samuel, but if history tells us anything, it’s that what Samuel knows within himself doesn’t matter a damn. George tells both teams that they did very well, but the words “except obviously for Diana” hang heavy in the air.

Apparently it’s a close decision, but then they would say that wouldn’t they. “Your flatbread was not properly cooked,” Matt tells the greens. “I can’t help but feel a little bit responsible,” says Sam, but he shouldn’t feel that way. He should feel entirely responsible. Matt tells the blues their flatbread was also crap, but unlike the green team they didn’t serve up gross plum-flavoured haloumi, so the blues won.

“I thought we absolutely smashed it out of the park,” says Samuel, proving how woeful his judgment is. A quick shot of Tamara shows her not smiling, which feels wrong, like the footage must have been digitally altered. The green team is shattered, and they must now go into elimination to find out which one of them is a failure as a human being.

Tune in tomorrow, when people will cook etc.

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