We have met the winner of Masterchef’s second edition and have asked her: what is turning cuisine into ashow for?
In one of the most beautiful squares of Rome, a distinct smell of newness calls the curiosity of the pedestrians who, peeking under a half-open rolling door, try to understand what is behind it. “A restaurant”some people say, “another one” many people say. So Wine So Food has gone to that square in search of the person who realized the dream of her life. A spiral staircase takes us to the kitchen where, among the first products to arrange and a team to coordinate, we find her, Tiziana Stefanelli. She is famous for her determination, for her passion and for her vocation, that of cuisine and that of the legal profession. Winner of the second season of the Italian edition of Masterchef (aired in 2012-13), she has kindly accepted to meet us and, furthermore, she has also satisfied our curiosity, which can be summed up in just one question, the one that we intend to answer in this issue: What is turning cuisine into a show for?
“Every chef must have his or her own identity”
– Tiziana Stefanelli –
What are Masterchef and other alike TV shows for? Her answer is straight and blunt: “for nothing, it is just a game” she states. She explains to us that, as every talent show, Masterchef is not a an alternative to proper training. It has to be taken for what it is, a TV show, even though it demands hard work. It was for fun that she decided to take part in the show, when after taking important decisions in delicate moments of her life, life itself made her run for fulfilment, as everything happened too fast for her. She looks at us for a second, the same second in which we acknowledge her background, and she tells us about her studies, and about the continuous in-depth research that she has undertaken since the moment in which she decided to become a Chef. At Masterchef they do not teach you anything “we have picked up some pieces of advice”- she says-. However, according to her, it seems that in the foreign editions the judges do teach something, (otherwise, using the word “master” would be senseless). Anyway, their judges are less pretentious than ours (the reader may point out that they are just acting for the sake of the show, but again, that is our point, it is only a TV show!) Many of the Chefs’ bizarre proposals can be justified, that is OK, as long as the justification has nothing to do with the aura of incontestable geniuses by which they seem protected. Because, are they really capable of everything? What if judges and contestants swapped roles? What if Chef Stefanelli would be the judge of a Masterchef edition? Would all of the five judges make it to the finale? Even Bastianich? Can he really cook? Before getting lost on these particularities, we concentrate on Nest, Stefanelli’s restaurant, which first of all is a dream come true, the confirmation that she made the right choices, even though sacrifices must be done all the time. Nest represents the research for a taste that, as the Chef says, is confirmed by a matter of memories, of figures that move inside us; it is the curiosity of the Chef for exploring new recipes. It will be for sure a wide and varied offer that will enrich those who will seat at its tables. We wish you the best of luck, Chef, and may the best win, again!
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