Watching My Kitchen Rules (MKR) is a new thing for me. I don’t watch much reality TV but MKR has started up and university hasn’t (yet), so I have a small amount of time available for TV. The show’s official site describes it as follows:

Each team will take turns to transform an ordinary home into an instant restaurant for one pressure-cooker night. They’ll serve up a three-course menu designed to impress not only their fellow contestants but our esteemed judges.

On last Thursday night’s episode, February 23, engaged scientists Emma and Andrew presented an Asian feast. They didn’t have a great night. Key elements of each course didn’t come together well and consequently the food was poorly received by judges and fellow competitors alike. One fellow contestant, who had also scored poorly, described Emma and Andrew’s dessert effort in this way:

“It’s a bit like what you envision at an orphanage where they’re just like slopping it on the plate. Sloppy Joes! Get your Sloppy Joes!”

Incisive critique? Cheap tactics? A passing comment? Regardless of how people play the game, food shows like MKR are clearly a privilege of our material prosperity. The tastes, sights and smells, the unique human ability to create (and critique) gastronomical delights, are all good gifts from God. Our taste buds and olfactory system are perfectly suited to enjoying the spectrum of flavours and smells available in the diversity of foods on this planet – foods which we enjoy in abundance in Australia. I don’t think there was any malice in the statement but when one’s enjoyment of food blinds you to the plight of those who have not, it could be a sign that your kitchen might just be ruling you.