A few months ago in an interview with this newspaper, Macarena Rey, CEO of Shine Iberia, producer of MasterChef, assured that she was doing everything possible to bring back the Junior edition of the culinary talent. She is her favorite and is the one she enjoys the most. She has made it.
MasterChef Junior will return to La 1 this Christmas and is about to have who will be the little chefs who will be the stars of the return to television. And to see how it is and what is going on inside, EL MUNDO has managed to get into the kitchen -never better said- in the last casting before the one to be held on August 30 and from which the final applicants will emerge.
It is July 28 in Madrid. Too early to be summer and even more so for a child who is on vacation. The appointment is at the NH Ribera del Manzanares. Children and parents have been summoned at 09:30, but it is 08:30 and there are already children knocking on the door of their parents’ car to get them to leave and go to the hotel; mothers in the middle of the street spraying their daughters’ braids so that they are perfect; parents taking photos of their children wearing chef’s hats and aprons; nervous children, others sleepy. They have gotten up very early. Patri got up at 05:30 in the morning. She couldn’t sleep. She tells us that her love for her cooking comes from her father, who is the one she “always” cooks with. He’s happy”. She doesn’t care that they don’t give her the spoon that will give her a direct pass to the next test because she already considers herself “a winner” for the simple fact of having gotten as far as she has.
Today 78 children between 8 and 12 years old have been summoned. They are very, very, very small. Some do not even have enough strength to open the containers in which they bring the dishes that they will have to present to the so-called “culinarios”, the chefs who are never seen on the program, but whose palate is the one who decides who passes or who stays. is out. This is the last step in a process that started with 8,000 registrations last May.
It all starts with a registration on a page that RTVE promoted for the first time in spring. In it, the children who wanted to participate had to send their information and fill out a very long questionnaire with questions about their hobbies, their level in the kitchen, their family, friends, etc. In addition, they had to record a video cooking and another introducing themselves.
From there the first sieve is made, but it is not the only place to find the future MasterChef. The team of Esther González, casting director of Shine Iberia, goes through all the culinary camps, including MasterChef, of course, in search of the best chefs. They ask the monitors, spend a few hours watching them cook and get in touch with the families.
If there is something beautiful in our work, it is that reality can surpass everything
“If there is something beautiful in our work, it is that reality can surpass everything. In other words, every year we see things that you say ‘but my goodness!’ We search under the stones and let life surprise us because what we find is outrageous”, explains González, who is very annoyed with those who say that the casting is always a lie, that the children are already chosen before and that everything is a paripé: “It does not bother me that they tell me that it is a scam because he is deceiving someone, it bothers me because behind a casting like Junior’s there is a lot of work behind it and we never go with any predisposition to find this or that profile”.
Of course, when you look at these 78 kids waiting in line to come in and present their plates, you realize there isn’t a single one that looks like it. Some are very serious, like Ángel Artiom, who is 12 years old and is a hundred times calmer than his mother. “Without a doubt, I am much more nervous than him. We come from the north of Madrid and he is going to prepare some wings with sake,” his mother tells us. “And you don’t know what it took us to find the sake to make them! He loves to cook and this year he’s loosened up a lot after coming home from camp.” Indeed, as Esther González said, Ángel is one of the children they found in the MasterChef camp. We wish him luck, he thanks us, he stays calm until… Until he sees a camera and goes for it like a big movie star.
Today, in addition to the casting and the visit of this newspaper, Shine Iberia is also recording the resources that will later be seen in the first program of this edition. Everything has to go perfect. Out of sleep, out of shame. “Where are we?” a member of the team shouts at the hotel entrance. “In MasterChef!”. “I can’t hear you! “In MasterChef!” “If I tell you Master… What do you tell me?” “Cheeeeeeeeeef!”
And with the shout it’s time to say goodbye to the parents, parents who escort their children as if they were Kevin Costner protecting Whitney Houston, who give them the latest advice, who tell them to have fun, “above all enjoy”, who blow them kisses , hearts… “Neither she nor I have slept at all,” Sabela’s mother tells us just when her daughter is going to be one of the first to enter and find her position in the cooking room. “We come from Lugo and imagine what nerves.” She can’t say anything else, she wants to send her last heart with her hands to Sabela. Others shed tears. Not the children, the parents. “And now where are they going? Can’t we go?” a mother asks the father of one of the children. “No, then they let us know when we have to come pick them up.” As if they went on Erasmus. Actually, they are going to have a pipe.
None are known, but survival was always the best of friends. 18 tables each occupied by four children who have their number and their name stuck where they belong. Some, the smallest, do not stop still. “I pee”, “I want water”, “what if we don’t have time?”. It’s the nerves before the debut.
“Welcome to Masterchef 10! The first thing we are going to do is sing happy birthday to a casting chief,” Esther González tells them. You have to break the ice, relax your muscles, make them forget about the pressure of a casting. “Now yes, let’s start. We have selected the children among the thousands and thousands of children who have signed up in four cities, five days of casting because we think you are the best.” They clap. “Since you are the best, you are going to start showing it right now. We are going to plate up. It may be that there is a very hard taper or that you cannot, do not move from the site and we will leave you 10 or 15 minutes, but do not get nervous because you will We’re going to let it finish. There’s no rush. Start counting when I say plate up and then we’ll raise our hands.” The cravings can.
Esther still hasn’t said the magic word and they’re already diving into their bags to get their plates out. Suddenly, she hears a “what if he doesn’t give us time?”. “Yes, it gives you time, but we do it slowly but surely.”
“(…) Both those who have a spoon and those who do not have a spoon have to be…”. Esther lets them finish the sentence. “Happy for having come to be here,” Marta shouts. And happy they are.
That image that children suffer, that they are exposed unnecessarily, that they live under pressure for which they are not prepared, of course, does not exist in casting. They assure members of the team that in the recording of the program neither. We see firsthand that at a time when anyone, especially a child, would have a hard time, MasterChef makes them live it like a dream.
“They love to see each other with their caps and aprons, plate them up, explain what they have done as if they were great chefs,” say members of the team. “Look, there is one thing that I personally like very much, and that is that a lot of nonsense and a lot of prejudice have been removed from people,” González affirms. “When we started with MasterChef we had people of 19 and 20 years old who came and said ‘I want to be a cook, but my father insists that I study Law or Engineering’. Now you ask these children what you want to be when you grow up and they tell you a judge, astronaut or cook and everything is at the same level, right? Why? Because chefs are big stars,” he concludes.
They start to plate up, raise their hand for help, talk to each other. It is a real chicken coop of emotion. A girl has brought an oreo cake. She has leftover cookies. She distributes them with those next to her, with the one in front, with the one behind. “Hey, your plate looks amazing,” Gabriel tells Patri. “And yours too”. There are few, if not none, who take this as a competition. Of course they want to be given the wooden spoon and, of course, there are some who look askance at the dish next to them – “it’s putting too much Parmesan” – but it is not the usual thing or what is instilled in them.
In fact, the greatest of his hopes is that any of us who are there will come and try his dish. “Oh, I’m sorry,” Jimena tells me. I wanted this journalist to try her plate and spoon goes, spoon comes, stain on the white shirt. “This is how I go home every day,” says the casting director.
“Let’s see that I clean the kitchen a bit because I have it all ‘disaster'”, is heard in the background. They are experts and faithful followers of MasterChef, with which they know that ‘Mari, the pig’ cannot make an appearance.
The time has come: “Hands up!”. The plating is over and it is time for the tasting. The “culinarios” will go post by post and child by child with their folder, their pen and their spoons. They will ask you about the preparation of your dish, about the ingredients and you will try it. Meanwhile, they are aiming. Some have lost their nerves and tears flow. It does not last long, the “culinarios” are like judges, but without a mallet. Others may have more fun than what they say: “I’m dying for you to try my Burger Surf. Do you know why I called it that? Because I love paddle surfing. I wanted to have put Burger Paddle Surf on it, but it didn’t fit me”. It’s Mario, he still has until one of the “culinarios” arrives. No problem! I’m sure he’s up to some mischief. It is MasterChef Junior meat.