The MasterChef journey to brain through stomach: Food as transnational capital

Abstract

The notion of ‘capital’ being fluid, it comfortably lends itself to a multiplicity of interpretive-analytical frameworks that involve anything that can be ‘cashed in’. The significance of food in its myriad manifestations and reimagining-s can barely be overstated as it not only is irreplaceable due to biological-gustatory function but also due to the way people connect with it culturally, domestically, ethnically and personally. A 1990 show created by Franc Roddam in UK was essentially resuscitated, reconceived and redeveloped in Australia in 2009 and the rest, literally, is history. Masterchef has become a culinary phenomenon like no other, has got its iterations across several continents and has essentially reimagined how ‘food’ is approached as well as conceptualized. A steep competitive framework and the time-tested format of a reality show can be argued to be two of the most significant reasons of its immense success which is apparent from its extensive viewership. This essay seeks to interrogate a format that, admittedly competitive and eclectic, has successfully found out a method of manipulating consumer choices through a sort of strategic representation. By no means a straightforward Marxist critique of capital-flows as operative in such sites that are determined by different modalities of choice-based resource-utilization in an age of unprecedented interpenetration of the public and the private life, this study also strives to be a close ‘reading’ of the reality show ‘Masterchef Australia’ and the subtle ways it has continued to impact food culture around the world including India since 2009.