{"id":3896,"date":"2016-03-13T00:33:24","date_gmt":"2016-03-12T19:03:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/?p=3896"},"modified":"2016-03-13T00:33:24","modified_gmt":"2016-03-12T19:03:24","slug":"how-masterchef-changed-our-middle-class-tastes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/13.207.105.184\/?p=3896","title":{"rendered":"Some Wafers for the Kadhi Chawal, Please: MasterChef Australia & the Importance of Family TV Time"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\n\nE<\/span>\n\n<\/div>\nvery time I sign in to my <\/span>Netflix<\/span><\/a> account, I\u2019m greeted by a selection screen asking me to choose from three viewer profiles \u2013 my mother\u2019s, my father\u2019s, and mine. Who consumes content <\/span>together <\/span><\/i>anymore? That\u2019s so \u201990s. And the reason we need those three profiles is that although we\u2019re living in the age of Peak TV, we can\u2019t seem to agree on what makes a good TV show.<\/span>\n\nIs it the plot? Or the characters? Half-naked people riding dragons or stories of notorious drug lords? Is it that one immortal, never-ageing Baa<\/span> in a house full of overdressed people? Or is it one man breaking down doors because \u201c<\/span>Kuch toh gadbad hai, Daya<\/span><\/a>\u201d? Or maybe you put them all together for a show where a half-naked Baa deals coke while evading the cops.<\/span>\n\nI say it\u2019s none of these. The greatest show is the one which, despite being the most unlikely candidate, manages to bring a family together at 9 pm every weekday for four months straight. Welcome to <\/span>MasterChef<\/span><\/i><\/a> Australia<\/span><\/i>.<\/span>\n\nIn a world where hyper-customised content is personally delivered to us on a handheld screen, it takes something truly special to bring people together for a genuinely social viewing experience. And in my house, that something special turned out to be <\/span>MasterChef <\/span><\/i><\/a>Australia<\/span><\/i>. Truly, food is a great leveller. <\/span>\n\nSurprisingly, my parents have never been voracious <\/span>foodies<\/span><\/a> like me. All my mother really craves is a bowl of curd rice, while my father might claim he \u201cloves to experiment\u201d, but his gut only seems to be able to digest ghar ka khana. In my dad\u2019s case, it\u2019s always go Indian <\/span>and<\/span><\/i> go home. We\u2019ve never been a TV-watching family either. In my 24 years, I can\u2019t recall a single time we\u2019ve sat down to watch one show together. But this week is Finals Week, the denouement of a season-long thrillride that has managed to unite the Gwalani household even faster than a cute new baby.<\/span>\n\nToday, when we\u2019re down to Finals Week in MasterChef with only five amateur cooks standing tall, things in the Gwalani household look very different. We start setting up dinner by 8.50. At 8.56 the TV is turned on; by 8:59 I yell out, \u201cMom! It\u2019s starting!\u201d <\/span>\n\nBy the time she sits herself down, it\u2019s 9.05 and the plot for today\u2019s episode is laid down. \u201cWhat happened so far?\u201d, mother asks. When we\u2019d just started watching the show, I\u2019d have to be the one doing the talking: I had to tell them what\u2019s happening, what a pressure test was, what the mystery box means, how you win an immunity pin, all of it. Three months into watching the show, mother\u2019s usual question is answered by dad, \u201cKhanh and Sashi have to cook for a shot at the immunity pin today. They can only use ingredients they picked out from the garden. Sashi\u2019s making an eggplant puree. Khanh is doing something with lime and Nasturtium flowers.\u201d <\/span>\n\n\u201cBhindi is nice\u201d, he adds, taking a bite of his own food. I\u2019m the part-shocked part-proud witness to this.<\/span>\n\nNow, a lot of our food experiences have begun to revolve around<\/span> MasterChef<\/span><\/i> Australia<\/span><\/i><\/a>. Come have lunch with us and you might hear father say, \u201cWe should make this paratha for the MasterChef guys; they\u2019ll go mad.\u201d Or my mother go, \u201cThis kadhi chawal is nice but it\u2019s missing a little crunch. Pass the Garden Wafers na.\u201d <\/span>\n

That\u2019s what great TV can do. Bring you together when you\u2019re least expecting it, make you feel so deeply for something you never imagined you cared for, and keep you waiting eagerly for more.<\/blockquote>\nYou may argue that a show like <\/span>MasterChef Australia <\/span><\/i>lacks the thrill and the suspense of a <\/span>Game of Thrones<\/span><\/i> <\/a>or <\/span>Breaking Bad<\/span><\/i>. But big actors and big budgets alone do not a great show make; I can\u2019t recall sitting down to watch even a single episode of either show with my family. This is why I believe <\/span>MasterChef Australia <\/span><\/i>might be the best show on our screens right now. <\/span>\n\nIt was unlikely that the \u201cno TV while eating\u201d rule would be broken so easily. It was even more unlikely that a food show would bring three people who look at food so vastly differently together, but that\u2019s exactly what it did. My <\/span>Sindhi<\/span><\/a> father has always looked at a plate of continental food and said, \u201cBade plate mein thoda khaana daal ke upar ek tulsi ka patta rakha hai\u201d (a tiny portion of food in a large plate topped with one basil leaf). Today he watches the very same plating and marvels at its beauty. To my utter bewilderment, my <\/span>Tam Bram<\/span><\/a> mother watches a steak being cooked and exclaims, \u201cThat looks nice and juicy!\u201d <\/span>\n\nThat\u2019s what great TV can do. Bring you together when you\u2019re least expecting it, make you feel so deeply for something you never imagined you cared for, and keep you waiting eagerly for more. <\/span>\n\nNow when <\/span>MasterChef Australia<\/span><\/i> is almost at its finale, the Gwalani household is set to feel a dinnertime void. I will not be surprised at all if a month from now my parents ask me to check on social media what Jess is up to or where Ben is now cooking. <\/span>\n\nWhile we wait for the finale, if anyone out there wants to start penning down a script for the half-naked coke-peddling Baa, hit me up! Working title: <\/span>Baarcos<\/span><\/i>.<\/span>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My parents have never been voracious foodies like me, but MasterChef Australia changed that. They went from merely eating to live, to living to eat. Come have lunch with us and you might hear mother say, \u201cThis kadhi chawal is nice but it\u2019s missing a little crunch. Pass the Garden Wafers na.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":321,"featured_media":3897,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2806],"tags":[94,7226,7227,7228,1341,1735,7229,3446,291],"class_list":["post-3896","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-grub","tag-food","tag-foodies","tag-masterchef","tag-masterchef-australia","tag-netflix","tag-sindhi","tag-tam-bram","tag-television","tag-tv"],"yoast_head":"\nSome Wafers for the Kadhi Chawal, Please: MasterChef Australia & the Importance of Family TV Time<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"My parents have never been voracious foodies like me, but MasterChef Australia changed that. They went from merely eating to live, to living to eat. Come have lunch with us and you might hear mother say, \u201cThis kadhi chawal is nice but it\u2019s missing a little crunch. 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