r/Masterchef

Who is your fav?

Everybody who’s heard of MasterChef knows of the iconic all-time bad cooks, including, but not limited to:

Slim (S1), Tali (S3), Sasha (S4), Howard (S4), Astrid (S5), Cutter (S5), and Mark (S8).

But what about other contestants who, for various reasons, aren’t remembered as much by fans but were still horrible cooks? A lot of this is common in first/early boots as they didn’t have as many chances to screw up as people like Tali who made it far, and if you only last one episode, unless you made like an all-time bad dish, you won’t be as remembered.

So what do you guys think? Who are some contestants that you think are downright awful that not many people talk about, besides the obvious and iconic cooks everyone knows about?

Who is yours?

I love Jennifer a lot especially with her hating Christian, but based on stats alone she’s by far the worst winner.

Throughout her run, she was extremely inconsistent overall, getting super lucky to have had shining moments occasionally, such as her lobster dish and her catfish dish (both in the same episode Joe lashed out on Christian for not listening).

She could have easily gone home on multiple occasions, but was saved due to someone doing worse or even that one time where the format of the show saved her, as she was called out during a Mystery Box challenge for her lamb being raw.

And when I say that lamb was raw, it was COMPLETELY RAW. Like Joe’s reaction was completely justified because how can you put something that raw on the plate? It was barely even kissed on all sides in the pan, with Joe even threatening to eliminate her on the spot. Just imagine if she did that the subsequent season where there WAS a mystery box elimination…

And then she proceeded to plate up the WORST dish from a winner EVER, one of the only few dishes to be dumped into the trash by Joe. The only reason she didn’t get eliminated that episode was because of Alejandra’s raw pork, which was obviously more life-threatening.

Honestly, the whole talent of Season 2 as a whole was pretty terrible, with almost everyone either being super inconsistent or flat-out bad. Even Adrian wasn’t much better at all and I would even consider him the worst runner-up as well. You pretty much only had to be pretty good (and not in the best day) to go far.

Nothing against Jennifer as a person, I had no issues with her or her personality. But objectively speaking she is the worst winner ever and she’s definitely not getting nearly as far as she did in any of these modern-day seasons where the talent has increased tenfold.

Since 2010, 15 full seasons of MasterChef have aired, with its 16th season airing right now (currently paused due to the World Cup). In the 16 years of the show’s existence, there have sure been many all-time HORRIBLE dishes, most of them unsurprisingly made by all-time bad contestants. In your opinion, what do you think is the WORST dish (or dishes) in MasterChef history?

You can also include audition dishes as well! :)

The two cases that come to mind in this regard are

i) Jessie and Krissi

ii) Leslie and Courtney

In the first case neither considered the other a talented cook and both believed in a cook off they will be able to steam role the other, when ever both got the opportunity, they always assigned the easiest dish to the other believing saving them for now will result in them being available to be taken out later(chrissy giving jessie chicken after winning the mystery box and jessie giving her the easiest dish when in top 5(episode where james went home))

Leslie and courtney, both believed take christian and elizabeth out , it is easy pickings every body else including each other, courtney considered leslie the weakest link on her team(one of the two people Leslie could not get along with to this very day, other being cutter, else he has a good relation with every other contestant) and leslie also tried avoiding her as much as possible on his teams and when asked his competition , it was always christian/elizabeth. So once again both believed in a cook off they can steam role the other

which other case like this comes to mind. Honorable mention I guess is christian and jennifer(season 2) but deep down I believe both knew the other is a good cook unlike the above situation

Hi everyone,

I’m the producer (and proud dad) of my 9-year-old son’s podcast, Join the Fray. We recently sat down with Dr. Ted Gervan, and I thought this community might appreciate his unique perspective on how the industry has shifted over the last two decades.

Before he became an educational leader at institutions like Sheridan, Capilano, and the Centre for Digital Media in BC, Ted worked as a prosthetic makeup artist in Hollywood. He was part of the talented team that brought the original X-Men (2000) to life. [Ted got the chance to support the super talented team of Evan Penny or Ann McLaren who designed the look for Mystique and Sabretooth!]

He contributed to the character designs (including the drawings for Sabretooth) and helped building specific costumes, pouring and coloring the silicone, painting nails, and applying the makeup once the initial sculpts were molded.

Fraser and Ted had a great discussion about:

• The Reality of the Makeup Lab: The technical process of pouring, coloring, and detailing silicone prosthetics for a major film production, and how that hands-on experience shapes his view of modern 3D pipelines.
• The Evolution of the Craft: How he sees the industry shifting between physical, high-touch lab work to digital-first workflows, and how education needs to adapt to teach both.
• Advice for Future Artists: His take on "the fear of building"—how he teaches students to bridge the gap between a design idea and the messy, physical/digital reality of actually building it.

It’s a non-monetized, fun interview and thanks to the Mods here to enable me to share it.

Spotify Link - https://open.spotify.com/episode/53jpLDHotOh8mE8Vo6jgc8?si=Koxoja8jTwWTW0bBUTpLoA

Enjoy folks and thanks for the opportunity to share this fun chat!

Found christian's arrogance fake and charming for some reason and disliked jennifer completely during that season. Found her as the worse cook and what was the nonsense in making christian taste her mashed potato and risotto? Definitely the villain for a series of other reasons(I thought serving uncleaned shrimp is enough of a reason to go into elimination but wasn't)

Both of them I believe are cooks who get too much hate from fans. For completely different reasons yes but they do believe they shouldn't . Here is why

Nathan: Many considered him a weak chef messing up basics, succumbing to pressure and making mediocre dishes. Well watching the season again, if you consider him mediocre, several other contestants were straight up disgusting de'andre, diana, diamond etc etc. Season 7 was a season of extremes, those who were good were really good(andrea, terry, shaun , brandy etc) and those who were bad, sucked to the core. Then there is nathan who is middle of the pack(above average infact), had some good, had some bad, never something absolutely mind blowing or something that can blow a fuse. He didn't outrun the bear, outran the guy next to him and at times closer to the fastest guy than many others. So hating him for his cooking seems off and his attitude wasn't bad either for justifying the hate

Elizabeth: One of the best cooks to ever appear on the show in terms of skill no doubt. She is hated primarily for her attitude. Rewatching the season again, why? her attitude wasn't all that bad and there were definitely worse ones in this aspect, starting of with the so called winner of that season, the legendary cutter(nobody can or will make artisan pizzas like him), stephanie, astrid etc make her look like a saint and except for her mocking leslie early on, she seemed to focus only on cooking with time. A lot of hate regarding her attitude is unwarranted

who else comes to your mind in this case?

I'm from around the area Subha is, and this is a traditional pudding in our culture. it's a variation of bread halwa i forgot the name. I'm not talking about the taste, it's not supposed to be spicy. But when they just kept calling it disgusting to look at and laughing before even tasting it... idk it rubbed me the wrong way. That's how it's supposed to look. It's rice pudding, I don't even think the concept is uniquely indian. you're telling me not a single one of them have ever seen a bread pudding??

They could've said it wasn't plated professionally or too simple for the competition, and that would've been valid. hell, they could've criticized him for cooking too much indian food. but just calling it awful looking for like 2 minutes was uncomfortable to say the least. Genuinely doesn't look that bad. it's generic, not deserving of being called the worst looking dish ever. I didn't see anyone else mention this so maybe I'm misremembering something, but yeah.

Edit: i remember they also kept saying that his other dish, was it the chicken chettinad? didn't look great. And it wasn't plated that great, but I remember Aaron was like "Indian dishes have the unfortunate tendency of not looking that amazing" tf do you mean...

And I know it doesn't look masterchef level. He could've made it look better, but he didn't. But it's literally your average pudding from that area. Its the equivalent of like, idk, a no frills generic apple pie. I don't remember the name, Ill ask my mom tomorrow, but it didn't deserve that extreme level of calling it disgusting looking and laughing. you can criticize the lack of effort put i into the plating. but it was average. not dirt.

The amount of support i'm seeing for this is showing why they thought this was ok in the first place. think about it this way: imagine joe calling a generic risotto disgusting and the worst looking thing ever?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=IRTwwyjyCOE&pp=ygUac2Vhc29uIDEwIGVwIDEzIG1hc3Rlpudding

Choose it wisely.