Your time starts now! ‘MasterChef SA’ returns for a fifth season

Lovely seafood in the Pick n Pay pantry. (Photo: Supplied)

By Georgina Crouth

12 Jul 2024

What’s it like being on MasterChef? Daily Maverick visited the set of the hit reality cooking show to find out more.

Television’s most successful cooking show franchise, MasterChef, is back in South Africa with a few familiar faces and a new home. The fifth season of MasterChef SA will be airing tomorrow (Saturday 13 July) on S3 (SABC3), with Pick ’n Pay returning as headline sponsor.

Experienced judges Justine Drake and Zola Nene are back, this time joined by Katlego Mlambo, who has worked across Europe, Asia, and the US. Recognised as the 2019 Eat Out Nederburg Rising Star, Mlambo was previously a guest judge on MasterChef SA and has two Food Network shows to his name: Inside Job with Katlego Mlambo in 2021 and Everyday Wow! in 2022. He’s cooked for Beyonce, Jay-Z, Barack Obama and Oprah Winfrey.

MasterChef SA judges, from left, Justine Drake, Zola Nene and Katlego Mlambo. (Photo: Supplied)

Nene, who is back this year for a second season, is a highly regarded chef and cookbook author who has won Best in the World at the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards three times. She’s a past judge on The Great South African Bake Off, and hosted her own show, Celeb Feasts with Zola Nene.

Drake needs little introduction in food circles. As one of South Africa’s most recognisable faces, she is the former editor of Pick ’n Pay’s now discontinued Fresh Living magazine and has more than three decades’ experience in the food and media industry. She’s written several cookbooks, has a YouTube channel, and has hosted numerous television shows including the BBC series Just in Africa and Just Cooking, in which she inspired audiences to turn familiar dishes into something extraordinary.

Michelle van Schalkwyk, Pick ’n Pay’s (PnP’s) head of brand, says the retailer was a sponsor for the show’s fourth season two years ago, stocking up the pantry, so when the opportunity to be headline sponsor arose, they grabbed it.

Heineken is the official wine sponsor — specifically Durbanville Hills — although PnP supplies all the other liquor for the show.

Food icon, author and Kokkedoor producer Errieda du Toit is the MasterChef content producer and “house mother”, who plays a critical role in guiding the novices along their journey from their arrival in the first episode to becoming a chef.

The fabulous Errieda du Toit. (Photos: Ian du Toit)

“MasterChef is an opportunity for us to showcase what we have to offer,” Van Schalkwyk says. “Errieda puts together a plan for what each show should be about, so we sat down with her and spoke about wagyu, exotic mushrooms and all sorts of other things that we sell at our stores. When it comes to innovation, we’re pretty much aligned to the market so there was nothing that she wanted to drive that we weren’t interested in.”

Season four was filmed during Covid-19 times, so contestants were all put up in a hotel and pretty isolated. This time around, convenience is a big factor, so they’re staying near the Atlantic Film Studios in Montague Gardens. The judges all stay with the director so they can practise their lines.

The guest judges and chefs are unscripted, as are the contestants, but the judges have to be 100% clear on the instructions they need to give the contestants.

“We’re building a new MasterChef. When many people think MasterChef they think MasterChef Australia. This time around, we’re building a solid personality for MasterChef SA. There’s so much alignment between S3 and who they’re trying to target, and PnP and who we’re trying to target. And then of course the foodie ingredients and the fact that you can get all of that at PnP. We just couldn’t pass up on it.”

Daily Maverick visited MasterChef during the filming of episode 19, by which time the contestants had been whittled down to four. On this day, the challenge for contestants was to serve a jubilee gold-themed dinner reflecting the evolution of cuisine over the past 50 years – for eight dignitaries from the South African Chefs Association, which is celebrating its special anniversary. No pressure then.

Du Toit says that at this stage in the game it is a significant moment as it signals the contestants entering the community of chefs. It’s the contestants’ first fine dining meal that they will be serving.

“My overriding personal mantra for the series is African excellence because you see in food circles all things African, or Africa rising. So for us the ideal is for the contestants to no longer look for inspiration from across our shores, but rather to find it all here in Mzansi.”

Lovely seafood in the Pick n Pay pantry. (Photo: Supplied)

The title “chef” is earned, she acknowledges, and while MasterChef might not be churning out chefs per se, it brings novices closer to the level of being a chef.

“To be called a chef, it’s an acceptable standard to have the papers to show for it. It is a level of proficiency and of dedication. A chef is more likely to be someone who creates and can command others. Whereas the cook – a home cook like myself – we reproduce. We follow recipes, what our mothers and grandmothers made. To be a chef is having that command of techniques, to use ingredients in new ways and new combinations.”

The prize is R1-million. There are no strings attached and certainly no restaurant as part of the package (the competition gifted Deena Naidoo, the first winner of MasterChef South Africa, a restaurant for a year, courtesy of Tsogo Sun).

Food presents many possibilities, which is why the prize must extend beyond having a restaurant, which is difficult to run and not something one can “grow” into. Whereas food trucks – what a past winner invested in – is more attainable.

Contestants, and the winners especially, also enter the sector with a network of support that they can lean on.

This is Du Toit and her husband Ian’s second MasterChef series. Food reality television has changed a lot since they first started in television. It might not be sensation-driven like Survivor, or about having game plans, it’s about a journey.

“From the moment you have to cook an egg, the drama starts. That’s why we have a full-time psychologist on board to help with the unforeseen circumstances around reality TV, which can be devastating.”

When something goes wrong, some experience a sense of shame and self-hate; others shake it off. Du Toit is contractually obligated to stay in touch with contestants for six months after the show wraps up.

“Some feel traumatised from the experience, so you need to have someone in a trust position. Contestants can’t talk to people at home. No one knows what they have been through, so they need to know that they can call on someone when they need help.”

It’s also hard on the team. By the time they hit episode 15, they’re all very emotionally attached. Everyone is affected and the crew gets attached to the competition. Du Toit says the judges and the crew are kind, but the process is brutal. Unless you go through this yourself, it’s very difficult to understand what that means.

When it’s time for the elimination, Du Toit will be waiting in the wings. When the newly knocked out contestant walks off the set, she will be the familiar face to help them through. DM

We previously stated that the series was being filmed at Cape Town Film Studios. This is incorrect. Filming is actually taking place at Atlantic Film Studios. We apologise for the error.

Categories:

TGIFood

Tags:

DM is much better if you are signed in...

TGIFood