Evil Mastermind or Masterchef?

Never in the field of entertainment have so so many scallops bravely laid down their lives for the sake of television.

After innumerable dishes by some of the finest (and worst) amateur cooks in the country, we have a winner who doesn't strictly come from this country anyway. Suspicions are that he comes from New Zealand, but if you listen closely he gives himself away. He's from Mongo.

The 2009 Masterchef winner is none other than Ming the Merciless.

After being impaled on an Ajax war rocket, rather than dying, he relocated to Dorset with dreams of opening his own fish restaurant, which is no doubt part of some insidious plan to take over the earth.

If I were Rick Stein I'd watching my back. Already established as the nicest fish chef in the UK, Ming no doubt plans to supplicate him, enabling him to appear on every TV show going, a forum from which he will use to indoctrinate us into eating fish, which he will somehow genetically modify to fill us full of his mind control drugs.

But I'm not fooled by that 'butter wouldn't melt' smile and proclivity for the waterworks. The man is pure evil.

Take for example his starter. Rabbit and nettles. A cute little bunny rabbit, trimmed into tiny pieces that the worlds greatest vivisectionist would envy, then serve it on a bed of nettles???

His main? Spider crab thermidor with mussels, foraged sea vegetables and a
side of chips. Crabs are evil. And foraged sea vegetables? Foraged? As in rummaging through bins and stuff? And chips? For fucks sake, you can't go on the Masterchef final and cook chips, unless John Torode and Gregg Wallace are already under your control....

They must be. If they were still human, would they shout like that all the time? Or spout the same bollocky superlatives every other breath?

Clearly they are facsimiles, automatons, gollums or other such zombies under the control of Ming.

And for dessert? Creamy lavender and blackberry mousse with honeycomb and
blackberry sauce. I haven't quite worked out what his evil plan is with this one, but then that's why he's an evil Mastermind. In fact, I'd expect to see him on that pretty soon. Either him or the girl from University Challenge, who is also clearly not of this earth.

I'm going to miss Masterchef now it's finished. Ming has clearly cast his spell on me, and despite the shouting, even Torrode and Wallace will create a (large) void with their absence.

True, the best bits are really the opening rounds where you try to guess who will go through before they even pick up a knife, and be amazed at some of the shite that some people try to pass off as food.

So well done Ming, you've been a joy to watch, and a deserved winner (even if you did do it with mind control. And at least smuggy bignose or beardy can't shave properly didn't win.













Mat Follas - Deserved Masterchef winner 2009