Masterchef: Confessions of a contestant

Masterchef is the prototypical modern TV cooking show, mixing classic 'man makes cake' demonstration with highly dramatic framing, engaging visual and audio cues, and a voiceover that's clearly written all in italics with the caps lock turned on. It turns the act of cooking into a high-stakes drama, and millions of us sit agog as the Masterchef contestants do their thing each year. 

Olivia Haslam was one such contestant, competing on the 2015 edition of the show. A student at Glasgow School of Art, Olivia signed up for Masterchef as a fan of the show, a fan of cooking, and someone “looking for something to do at the time who saw no reason not to do it.” Looking back at the experience a year on, Olivia offers a qualified endorsement of her time on the show. "It’s for a certain type of person", she says, "although you won’t know whether you are that type of person until you get there.”

The making of Masterchef

That person, it seems, is someone with the burning drive to be a Michelin-quality chef, but who also doesn't mind spending their weekends conducting talking head interviews in a cupboard. Masterchef seems like a hyper-real, high-drama whirlwind to the viewer, and Olivia confirms that, yep, it's just like that when you're on the inside.

"You're conscious of the way that everyone's roles seem predetermined," says Olivia. "In the first episodes of each series, the contestants are all picked out to fit into certain groups or 'types' – I was the 'young one.'" The demands of television varied from the to-be-expected to the faintly ridiculous, with cameras everywhere and very little chance to get into any kind of comfort zone. The contestant's menus are all agreed weeks in advance, so the room for spontaneity is basically non-existent.

Then there was the point at which Olivia was asked to repeatedly put down a spoon on a counter (so the production team could record the sound for one of the show's trademark edits). Or the incident which saw Olivia filmed chopping carrots, and feeling unable to stop because of the camera trained on her the entire time. Does someone in the edit team really like carrots? Do you even ask? "What I love is being comfortable when cooking," says Olivia, "not… that."

Masterchef's John & Gregg

And then there are John Torode and Gregg Wallace, Masterchef's resident duo of cantankerous yet effusive judges, and living proof that the gulf between 'jolly greengrocer' and 'major TV player' isn't quite as wide as we'd like to think.

The first time contestants meet food TV's answer to Statler and Waldorf is when the duo make their rounds to see who's ripe for a needless bollocking: “They ask you “What are you making?”, you give your answer, and that’s it.” Other than that, the 'talent' exist in a separate bubble from the contestants, save for Wallace filming his 'FIVE MINUTES TO GO' cutaway mere minutes into the contestants' cooking time "so they could get it filmed". That won't cause any lasting psychological damage, we're sure.

As for her time on the show, Olivia's avocado cheesecake and the reaction of those who tasted it spawned a trending Twitter hashtag, which she counts as one of the high points of the experience (she also directs us to the avo cheesecake at Glasgow vegan staple Mono if we're still unconvinced of the concept). Olivia also reports that, fittingly, the BBC's flagship cookery show does offer the opportunity to make use of some incredible ingredients: “When I turned up to cook on the second day, I’d never seen steak like that before... or since.”

And sometimes things on Masterchef aren't quite as cut-and-thrust as they seem, as Olivia explains: “When you get eliminated, they don’t make you leave. After I got kicked off the show, and filmed the shots of packing up my stuff, I was in the studio for another hour having a cup of tea with the contestants.” Having tried to excuse our own share of culinary missteps with a cuppa, we're pleased to see it's a trick that also has its place in the world of food telly.