Talkin' 'Bout My Generalisation

Channel Ten broadcast their new show Talkin’ ‘bout Your Generation last night and I enjoyed it. It’s a completely unfair competition (more on that later) but Shaun Micallef amuses me and Gen Y got a hiding. Perfect. (Good, also, because it follows a show I find stressful.)

 

MasterChef is tough on me. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not nearly as bad a show as I would’ve expected. Apart from the odd personal idiosyncrasy from the judges, I don’t feel angry, retch or throw things when I see them. In fact, they’re quite encouraging to the contestants, which makes a nice change, yeah?

 

Many of the contestants seem nice and I don’t instantly want them to die a horrible, deep-fried death. They have some substance and skill and certainly bring more to the dining table than contestants on some other reality shows. They’ve done more than just eat enough to shift themselves into a new species category and they do more than walk in a straight line… in clothes. The show is almost about something - and that’s good enough for me.

 

But it’s not a fair competition. Anyone who has cooked for anyone else, and cares about the result, knows how tough it is.

 

Once I tried to poison some guests by being too conscientious. I broke the recipe because I had stage fright. I checked the meat more often than was necessary and inadvertently kept dropping the temperature in the oven. No meat thermometer, but I knew the weight and I’d made the meal successfully a few times before. No problem. But even by the most liberal interpretation of the word  “blue” , I couldn’t serve the quivering mess in good conscience.  

So how are these poor buggers, who have to perform for tough judges and the camera, ever going to get a fair hearing when an unpractised dish goes for a Burton? The artificial time limit means they have to chuck out the masterwork and resort to cornflakes, Worcestershire Sauce and yoghurt and pretend they were going for something “traditional and simple”, yeah?

 

I also find the show a little confusing. I’m usually eating my own, real dinner while I immerse myself in their little pan-fried fantasy world. My senses are spread too thin. The discord happens when I’m listening (and watching) a judge say, “the meat has a good, honest flavour” as I’m spooning fish into my mouth. I get a slight reality twist going and think, “these guys have got no idea, it‘s the fishiest piece of bee… Oh.”

Confused and shovelling all manner of hybrid weirdness into my mouth, I’m going to keep watching, though. For the record; I can’t work out what Lucy Liu is doing there, I’m glad the vegetarian that wept at meat has been boned, I want Trevor to win (I know he can’t because he has cooked “chicken starfish”, but I want him to win) because anyone who has done time in a submarine is probably going to be good under literal and metaphorical pressure and will be nutty enough not to stand out from real chefs.

So, what’re Talkin’ ‘bout Your Generation’s unfair bits, you ask? Well, unless they stack the Baby Boomers panel with hep cats, the Gen Y’s panel with hXc Neo Cons and the Gen X panel with muppets, the Gen Xers are going to cane it every time. Not just because it’s my generation and we are all misunderstood geniuses, but because it’s the middle ground. We are sucking a little from their oxygen tents and their humidicribs.