The Best Dream I Ever Had
Or How I Didn't Actually Appear On Masterchef
Some ten or more years ago, I dreamed of appearing on Masterchef, not as a contestant, but as a guest. And when I say dream, I don’t mean it was an ambition. I mean that during the REM stage of night spent sleeping, I had a dream in which I appeared on Masterchef.
This dream was set some years in the (then) future, when I had achieved some minor success as a science-fiction author. And yes, this was a bit egotistical, but if you can’t be the protagonist of your own dream, when can you?
So this particular series of Masterchef had got to a point where they had eight contestants who for this episode had been divided into teams of four, with each team being tasked with doing the food for a dinner party for five “famous” vegans.
Now I say “famous” in quotes because I was having this dream before the rise of celebrity veganism. In reality, the programme’s producers had chosen veganism as a niche theme to take the contestants out of their comfort zone, and the vegans they’d invited were, with the exception of the actually famous poet, Benjamin Zephaniah, famous only in the sense that they could in some way be described as notable. So along with Benjamin, the guests consisted of the Chair of the Vegan Society, various cooks and nutritionists, some minor sports people, and me.
I think there was ten of us, divided into two tables of five, and put into two adjacent rooms to enjoy our meals and have our dinner parties, albeit in front of cameras. And this is where it got awkward. Not the cameras. The food.
See, one team got it. “These people are vegans because they care about animals,” they said. “But they’ll like food, and being on Masterchef they’ll expect a treat for their tastebuds.” And this team delivered. Having delivered a good starter and main course, they played it slightly safe with dessert by going for a fruit crumble served with a soya cream from the pantry, but it was by all accounts a really good fruit crumble.
But you can already tell from my use of the phrase “by all accounts” that I wasn’t on the table being served by that team. No, I was on the other table, being served by the team that Just. Did. Not. Get. It. At all.
Having been served an okay but slightly boring starter followed by an okay but slightly boring main course, this team really got themselves confused when they got to dessert. See, they’d completely missed the bit that we were vegans because we loved animals and concluded that we were vegans because we hated food, or at least that we were looking to eliminate anything from our diet that might have even the suggestion of being unhealthy.
After a bout of agonised discussion they decided to serve a fruit salad (a.k.a. chopped fruit); after a further bout of even more agonised discussion, they then decided to not serve it with the soya cream from the pantry. “These people are health freaks,” they said. “They’ll be offended if we give them cream, even soya cream”.
We’d gone on Masterchef expecting to be fed like Kings, but now found ourselves being fed plain, chopped fruit. I think we were all disappointed, but I, who really doesn’t like fruit, was crushed. More than crushed.
I lost it. I ranted. I had a total meltdown. I think a lot of swearing was involved, the sort that gives the beep-machine man blisters. My toys were very much thrown out of my pram.
How bad was it?
They used my meltdown as the centre-piece of the trailer for this episode, played at the end of the previous episode.
Totally, national humiliation, flagged up a week before it happens.
It was the sort of dream you’re frankly relieved to wake up from.
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