From connoisseurs to the more culinary common they all came with their cooler boxes: bringing gifts from baked goods to more bohemian delectibles as a large number of contestants in Cape Town descended on M-Net's open auditions today for MasterChef South Africa.
Contestants in South Africa's culinary capital arrived en masse for the second Saturday of nationwide auditions following Johannesburg last week, for a chance to pass the taste test in the first local season of MasterChef South Africa. The reality show will start on the pay broadcaster on 20 March 2012. MasterChef South Africa is produced by Curious Pictures and Lucky Bean Media and the winner will get R8 million in prizes including his or her own restaurant.
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Contestants arrived early today in Cape Town at the Southern Sun Cullinan hotel in the Foreshore with their cooler boxes. After registration, about 20 contestants at a time would be ushered into a first room where they had a set time to unpack and ''prepare'' or style their food.
Then it's up the staircase one floor to present their food to one of about 15 chefs. M-Net allowed me access to the room to watch the MasterChef South Africa contestants present their food on the condition that I don't take photos and don't talk to anybody, and I agreed.
Chefs sit in rows behind each other, resembling an examination hall, behind small flat wooden tables with water (to cleanse the palate after a tasting) and small wooden utentils to cut, scoop and pick morsels of food. Firstly, as contestants are ushered in with their food concoctions, they have to pass one of three ''thermo scanners''. These three people, with their ''thermo guns'' which resemble shopping handheld bar code scanners, zap the contents of a plate, cup, mug, bowl or plastic tupperware to ensure that it falls within the allowed temperature parameters.
Then a contestant is allocated and ushered to one of the about 15 chef judges who would cut or scoop a bit of their food. The chef would nibble, taste, look at the presentation and then the contestant is sent ut. Contestants, on their registration forms, are given a symbol mark. Once outside of the ''examination hall'' room, they're individually told whether they've made it - or not. Those who pass the first preliminary judging, are filmed with their food and asked a few further questions which will help the producers in determining who makes the eventual cut for the show's chosen few.
Those who made it are instructed that they're not to use any form of social media to ''announce'' that they've passed the first hurdle to being on the show or that they will be disqualified, or to discuss what happened. The food goes back in the cooler boxes all stacked in a corner of the hotel resembling the ''lost luggage'' section at the airport, and those who made it and those who didn't make way for the next section of foodie contestants.
Photo: Trevor Crighton for M-Net
