5 Things We Learnt from Creating “Masterchef Challenges” with Our Children
An easy and fun family activity…
During lockdown last year, we watched the 11th series of Masterchef as a family. It became a firm favourite with each of us championing our preferred contestant. Our youngest son called the winner pretty early on. He absolutely loves Larissa, her creativity and especially her unusual flavour pairings.
So, with this as the background, it’s not surprising that we started a family Masterchef competition. It’s also not surprising that we were a little concerned about what our youngest might concoct!
It has since been such fun. We have tried a couple of different challenges and each one has taught us something new about each other. We’ve even learnt a few kitchen skills along the way.
Below, I’ve written about a few challenges we’ve tried so far and what we’ve learnt. You could tailor this to suit your family and enjoy a (not too difficult) family activity. One of the best outcomes is that dinner is served!
1. Competition can be healthy…
With two young competitive boys in our household, I tend to shy away from competition. (May I point out that no one else does…) Masterchef, however, provides such an excellent example of healthy competition, that it’s an awesome springboard for addressing what I can find a difficult topic. It’s an opportunity to talk to young people and ask them what they think about competitions and competing:
- How important are rules in a competition?
- How important is winning?
- Is there anything more important than winning?
- What does a ‘good looser’ mean?
- Who are the contestants competing against?
- How do contestants improve?
- How do you feel if you win?
- How do you feel if you lose?
- What do you do with big emotions?
- Do you think you’re able to be a ‘good loser’?
- What’s the point of losing? Is there something to learn?
- Does losing mean you’re bad at something?
We’ve lived in a number of different places and I find that the perspective on competition is different in different countries. I think educators are still working this one out and I’ve noticed such disparate ways. They all have their place no doubt — perhaps a topic for another day!
2. Keep things easy peasy lemon squeezy …
The first time we tried this, each of our boys invited a friend round and teamed up with them to compete for the Masterchef title. I prepared the “mystery box” containing the same ingredients for both teams. The instructions were to create a small main meal and a small desert for everyone.
The first mystery box that I put together was an easy one. Although my boys are used to cooking, I wanted it to be fun and not too taxing on anyone (including me!). Each team had pasta I had pre-cooked, loads of kid-friendly veg to choose from including courgettes, tomatoes, peppers and mushrooms as well as cheese. Kitchen staples of butter, milk and flour as well as herbs and spices were also in play.
If you’re looking to put together a first try, this combination works well. There is so much potential for creativity and so many different ways to plate up a pasta dish. We ended up with an oven bake and a pretty pasta and sauce creation.
Desert was just as easy — if not easier in fact. Biscuits, dark chocolate chips, marshmallows… The challenge was to take the ingredients and present them in a cohesive and delicious way. You could come up with any combination. You’d be surprised how creative your children can be with simple ingredients.
3. Team work takes practise… the process
I prepared the work stations well, and then, left them to it. We put on some good music (they put on some good music… I have noticed that our tastes are now slightly different…) and dinner was underway.
It was awesome to see how the two teams interacted with each other. There was an initial moment of folded arms and two boys both wanting their idea to be heard. Once their body language was pointed out to them, they smiled, laughed and muddled through communicating and sharing their ideas. As they say, the proof is in the pudding! Both teams made a super meal.
Then, there was the moment of announcing a winner. One team won the main meal and the other team won the desert. There was a clear understanding of why and a general appreciation of both outcome and process.
If your children are particularly competitive and need a winner, put a points system/ judging framework in place before you even start and make sure everyone is clear on the rules.
Rules could range from:
- You need to use all the ingredients.
- You can leave out one ingredient.
- You need to use one specific ingredient.
- You need to complete the task within a certain timeframe (We didn’t add this initially — for us it creates an unnecessary stress.)
- Point out that if they don’t follow the instructions, their efforts are disqualified.
4. Be super crystal-crystal clear about the rules
We lived in France for about seven years where the meaning of equality or “egalite” was really brought home to us. Everything — every tiny thing — needed to be equal. French children have no problem whatsoever if there is a winner so long as everyone has an equal starting point and everyone is fully aware of the rules.
Rules create fairness and this means that children can accept and even congratulate the winner. They also have a very clear idea of why they lost and have no reason to feel bad about it either. Clear language. Clear boundaries. It was quite something to experience!
5. Keep things interesting — Masterchef challenges since…
Since then, we have tried this format with different ingredients. Sometimes, I’ve done a little tutorial beforehand so that the children are confident with the ingredients they are using. (We’ve done a potato tutorial and chicken tutorial. You need to know that both these ingredients are actually cooked…)
Another challenge that has worked well was when we had three kiddies in the kitchen and each child was responsible for a dish — either the starter, main or desert. Each person has creative control of their dish, but can ask for help from a “sous chef” if they need it. This had less of a competitive angle and a greater focus on creativity. I took the time to listen to each child’s idea. It was a good lesson for me — no suggestions from my side, just pure listening to try to make their idea a reality. I gave them two choices when the idea was simply beyond me…
I hope these few learnings will provide “food for thought” in your home! Happy cooking!
