Mouthing Off | Asian food: why do MasterChef and other cooking shows only show rice and sweet and sour pork?

Despite TV personalities such as David Chang and Anthony Bourdain working to popularise it, most of the Western world is still ignorant of Asian cooking

Cooks on shows such as MasterChef rarely attempt any in-depth Asian dishes, whether Chinese, Thai, Korean or Japanese

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When will actual Asian cuisine be represented on TV programmes outside Asia, such as MasterChef? Photo: Shutterstock

Published: 3:00pm, 8 Jan 2020Updated: 8:31pm, 9 Jan 2020

It’s a slow week night and I find myself vegetating in front of the TV, watching another season of MasterChef.

As usual, feisty judge Gordon Ramsay is ripping into another contestant for his poor job of cooking a piece of meat and Joe Bastianich is shooting daggers at another for sloppy plating.

As an Asian viewer, though, what’s been gnawing at me over so many seasons is how little Asian cuisine they actually feature. As people discover food from Asia, this geographic region has undeniably had the most profound culinary effect of any continent the last 20 years.

If you watch Masterchef , you’d think Asian food is still just rice, more rice and sweet and sour pork.

Rarely do viewers ever witness in-depth Asian cooking on shows like MasterChef. Photo: Shutterstock

This applies to many other cooking competition shows, too. Whenever Asian dishes are showcased, the efforts of many participants reveal they barely have even rudimentary experience of Eastern cooking.

Of course, I’ve seen people attempt noodles, dumplings and curries, while others espouse the influence of Asia with dressings of soy, fish sauce and ginger. Occasionally, the judges even challenge the amateurs to attempt sashimi knife work, or have them roll up rice and nori to make sushi – which usually results in a lot of disastrous whole fish butchering.

Mouthing Off | Asian food: why do MasterChef and other cooking shows only show rice and sweet and sour pork?

Despite TV personalities such as David Chang and Anthony Bourdain working to popularise it, most of the Western world is still ignorant of Asian cooking Cooks on shows such as MasterChef rarely attempt any in-depth Asian dishes, whether Chinese, Thai, Korean or Japanese

Despite TV personalities such as David Chang and Anthony Bourdain working to popularise it, most of the Western world is still ignorant of Asian cooking

Cooks on shows such as MasterChef rarely attempt any in-depth Asian dishes, whether Chinese, Thai, Korean or Japanese