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Markle ado about nothing? The verdict on Meghan as guest MasterChef judge You know I love a longform article. Well here's Ben Pobjie review of Megsy's appearance last night in Melbourne's The Age. He does like to take the piss! ⬇️ And so it came to pass that Meghan, Duchess of Sussex arrived at the MasterChef kitchen and, just like Poochie the Dog, made life worthwhile for all of us. And what a spectacular entrance it is. After Poh gives her a grand and really quite misleading introduction – describing her as a “global icon” and someone known for her “home cooking”, so that nobody could possibly guess who it might be – the woman herself walks down the red carpet to widespread bafflement. As well as the final four amateur cooks, all eliminated contestants were allowed to be in the room to witness the royal event, and every one of them performs impressive impressions of people who are impressed. The sense that Meghan’s presence in the kitchen is utterly inexplicable, however, is impossible to miss – if Robert Irwin as a guest judge was confusing, this is bewilderment on a scale rarely seen on Australian television since the demise of It’s a Knockout. Many people might have questioned the duchess’ credentials as a cooking expert, but those people are immediately shut down when she reveals a table full of fruits and vegetables and demonstrates that she knows all their names and how to pronounce them properly (as opposed to the word “herb”, which she pronounces wrongly because she is American). “Your time starts now,” she announces, showing all the acting chops she honed on Suits, as she plays the part of a person who has the slightest interest in anyone else in the room. As the cooks rush to make their dishes – the task was to take an ingredient and make a meal “fit for a duchess”, or more specifically fit for a duchess who has been excluded from the royal family – the judges surround Meghan to tell her how wonderful she is and ask her what she would cook and how she got to be so beautiful and what brand of shampoo she uses. The cooks themselves come up with all kinds of crazy concepts, but we wouldn’t want to dwell on those. As the old TV industry aphorism goes, if you want people to pay attention to the food, you do not get Meghan on as a guest judge. It is notable, however, that Aaron appears to have a crush on Meghan and is quite flustered when talking to her about carrots. Incidentally, carrots are one of the many vegetables that Meghan ABSOLUTELY LOVES. Petro makes celeriac ice-cream, in line with his well-earned reputation as “guy who makes desserts out of ludicrous things”. And it was a wise choice for the guest judge, too, because Meghan LOVES celeriac. And she LOVES the idea of celeriac ice-cream. And she LOVES being on television. Neither Petro nor Aaron can believe they are cooking for Meghan, who, to be clear, is not just an ordinary human being: she is an ordinary human being who married someone very famous. As such, she makes all those other guest judges who have achieved massive success in food by their talent and years of hard work really look like pathetic losers. Meghan LOVES celeriac. And she LOVES the idea of celeriac ice-cream. And she LOVES being on television. At one point, Poh drags Meghan over to a table and makes her eat her banana and date loaf, just so they can say the duchess really earned her fee. Meghan asks Poh if she can have the recipe and Poh says she can, both knowing that in an hour or so they will part ways and never talk to each other again for the rest of their lives. There is also some cooking going on – Vinnie, like Petro, is using celeriac, but unlike Petro is being normal and not making ice-cream out of it. Instead, he is cooking a steak and draping celeriac in decorative ways over it. Meghan is SO EXCITED about this. Meanwhile, Casper has an artichoke. “That artichoke looks wild!” shout the watchers from the balcony, where they’re really starved of things to get excited about now that they’ve all talked about how INSANE and CRAZY and UNBELIEVABLE it is to have Meghan here. Quickly we cut away from the cooking to listen to Meghan talk about her show, With Love, Meghan, which is just like MasterChef apparently because it’s all about “cooking for joy”. Also, just like MasterChef contestants, Meghan has no qualifications or experience as a professional cook, so there are a lot of parallels. But you can’t deny that she’s got a real knack for walking up to people and telling them there’s 30 minutes left. So good at this is she, in fact, that after she tells all four contestants, everyone gives her a round of applause. And why not? They just watched a woman walk around a room without falling over and say several words – not everyone can do this! “It feels like she’s looking into your soul,” says Casper, possibly hinting that Meghan might secretly be a demon? This is backed up when he immediately cuts himself for the first time this season. The duchess’ powers are indeed terrifying, as the blood flows in the kitchen. Casper has a vision for cooking octopus, and Meghan LOVES that. “Make it sparkle for Meghan Markle!” Sofia shouts, and doggone it, that is just about the most brilliant bit of wordplay anyone present has ever heard. The kitchen practically explodes with happiness. Shortly after this, Petro says a sequence of words that has never been spoken before in human history: “My concern with the ice-cream is that there might not be enough celeriac.” So this episode is historic for two reasons. Meghan then tastes Petro’s ice-cream and immediately assumes an expression of intense distress, as if she’s just been forced to watch a dog being strangled. It is a moment of high panic as Petro contemplates the likelihood that he is about to serve the worst plate of food ever made to an actual duchess/fictional lawyer. But he still has time to try to make it taste non-horrible. It’s celeriac ice-cream so he probably can’t, but he can try. The judging process is incredibly tense: Casper’s octopus, Vinnie’s steak, Petro’s ice-cream and Aaron’s stir-fry must compete not only against each other, but also against the impossibly refined palate of Meghan Markle, Ethereal Super-Being. There’s also tension emanating from Jean-Christophe, who’s looked pissed off for the whole episode, as if he’s itching to ask Meghan how many Michelin stars she’s got. But the duchess comes through with some truly penetrating insights into the food she eats, such as “I love this dish” and “It’s so good”. You can definitely see how she became a duchess, a title traditionally granted only to the most discerning of reality TV cooking judges. The most amazing part of the judging is when a producer suddenly walks into shot and hands Meghan a phone, on which Prince Harry himself is Facetiming! Isn’t that amazing? Just on the spur of the moment it happened! I’ve never seen anything so spontaneous and unplanned! Everyone again bursts into applause for the concept of unearned privilege. Anyway, in the end everyone loves every dish, even Petro’s ice-cream. In fact, it’s the dish of the day, and Petro goes through to the semi-final, proving the ironclad rule of MasterChef: put something stupid in ice-cream and you’ll win. The judges thank Meghan for coming all this way just to earn a large amount of money and promote her brand, and everyone is happy, especially Meghan, who now gets to go to her hotel room and forget about it. As for the rest of us, we can only sit back, spent, and wonder, as a civilisation, what we have wrought.