With My Kitchen Rules coming to an end, news of the return of MasterChef couldn’t have been timelier.

For quality cooking shows, within a few short months, we’ll have gone from a smorgasbord to a piddling entrée. Let’s face it – five minutes of Fast Ed each week is not gonna cut it. 

And if, like me, you’re a regular viewer of Man vs Wild, starring wilderness survival expert, Edward ‘Bear’ Grylls, you’ll have an extra reason to celebrate: you can toast the return of your appetite.

If you’re unacquainted with Bear, think Steve Irwin, but a crazier, scarier, more impulsive version, who is predisposed to eating every vile and unimaginable evil on four, eight or no legs.

Over the past four episodes Bear has consumed goat testicles, a decomposing calf’s eye (he boiled it first – can’t be too careful about hygiene I guess), live spiders and slugs, to name but a few of the culinary delights; before washing them down, not in the same sitting, fortunately, with the warm blood of a yak and a litre or two of his own urine slammed down in true ‘solo man’ fashion. 

So why don’t I change channels? This has me stumped too. Sadly, I think I’m addicted. Apart from the guy’s despicable eating habits, he’s actually quite likeable (and any bloke who’s bold enough to christen his boys, Marmaduke and Huckleberry, in today’s conservative society, is alright by me). 

But then again, maybe it’s my survival instincts: I tune-in because if I’m ever lost in the Andes wearing only my Speedos, or traipsing through the Amazon with nothing but my iPod for protection, oh, and a team of burly cameramen, it’s crucial I know what to do.

But back to the tucker, the things that have passed Bear’s lips in recent weeks have become too much to bear.  So gut-churning in fact, I’ve even considered swapping from solids to an intravenous drip. 

So, although Matt Preston scares my kids stupid with his suave Dracula looks, within days of the announcement of MasterChef’s return, he’s become our new poster boy. 

I know when the show finally hits the air I’ll cry a thousand joyous tears into my newly laundered cravat. 

Bear Grylls versus tasty grills – no contest - bring on MasterChef!

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24 comments

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    • XL-ent says:

      06:02am | 31/03/10

      Bravo! GREAT article. I too ‘enjoy’ Bear. It’s horrific watching him eat those creatures/parts of creatures… particularly as he usually bites them in half so all the puss and gizzards squirt out of his mouth *shudder*. But humans do like to stare at freaks -probably why so many people like Lady Gaga (yes, & M. Preston AKA Dracular).

    • Luke says:

      07:26am | 31/03/10

      Bear is awesome! I am completely addicted! Its not just the food that he eats and the things he does (like climb 100ft rock faces without ropes) but the way he presents.  There is quite a bit of self-depreciating humour that is quite funny when you listen to it.  Love Masterchef also, can’t wait for it to be back on.

    • persephone says:

      07:47am | 31/03/10

      I’m waiting for the episode - it’s only a matter of time - where he turns to the camera and says, in earnest tones, “In this situation, there’s only one solution—- I’m going to have to eat the cameraman.”

    • Lucy Kippist

      Lucy Kippist says:

      08:04am | 31/03/10

      Ha! That’s great Persephone, I’ve also thought that when I’ve watched the show

    • BTS says:

      08:23am | 31/03/10

      Note to self:

      Don’t go camping with persephone or Lucy!!!

    • John T says:

      03:00pm | 31/03/10

      Why should Bear consider eating the cameraman? Why not the other way round?

    • Chris says:

      12:12am | 01/04/10

      Coz I reckon Bear would be a bit tough and stringy, John T

    • Ziggy says:

      07:48am | 31/03/10

      Ah the return of the chef as the modern day poet/soldier/hero! How we all bow to their unnassailable views on everything! The GFC - no problem, just ask a chef.What to do about North Korea, Iran? Have more figs with marscopone.
      Recently read about the poor chef who got irritated and angry because a customer had the cheek to complain about slow service. Thundered the great oracle - it takes time to cook fresh. But 75 mins to cook a simple pasta dish! Soon we will have posters on the walls of these master chefs.What a society have we become - more obsessesed with being told the correct way(i.e. in some chefs opinion) to make orange sauce than with real issues. I suppose it’s a way to turn off reality for an hour and fantasise about all that chocolate with Nigella. Or that constantly grinning good looking bloke who often rants on about only using fresh vegetables in season - he apparently has no idea that the stuff in the large chains is usually around at least 6-18months old even when ‘in season’. Chomping merrily on the ‘fresh grapes’, no doubt,6 months old and preserved with sulphur dioxide? Or that the heavily farmed salmon he is advertising to illustrate the fresh food of some chain is full of hormones and antibiotics?
      Posturing wankers the lot of them. Give me Bear anytime - now that’s fresh food for you.

    • Ellie says:

      09:36am | 31/03/10

      I love Bear Grylls. He gets naked almost every episode. So rugged and sexy.

    • dancan says:

      10:12am | 31/03/10

      And he’s a man who can cook!.....kinda.

    • Mark says:

      10:06am | 31/03/10

      Absolutely love the show. It is a sick pleasure of mine.

      The most hilarious part of him drinking urine is the times it is completely unnecessary.
      In a drop off the coast of Namibia, he was explaining the process to use evaporation to filter dirty/salt water into fresh water.
      “And if you don’t have access to sufficient water, you can use your own urine”. You were 5 metres from the ocean, Bear!!
      Love it.

    • Ziggy says:

      10:26am | 31/03/10

      Mark: that was indeed funny. If you can’t get fresh water in the Namib you are truly hopeless. The worst danger you face is dying of some chest disease because of the heavy fogs! Fresh water condenses on every conceivable surface! Camels died there - not from lack of water but from pneumonia!

    • Zeta says:

      10:32am | 31/03/10

      I like it when Bear Grylls starts relating ridiculous stories during his adventures as warnings to others, only he never elaborates on them - ‘It was in this very forest just a few years ago that a woman and her daughter went hiking, only to be eaten alive by pidgeons’.

    • persephone says:

      11:58am | 31/03/10

      I have to confess I spend almost every episode wondering about the camera crew and how they’re keeping up.

      When Bear curls himself up for the night in the fork of a tree in the midst of the swamp, are they doing similar?

      Or is there a campsite, complete with portable fridges, bunkbeds, blazing with halogen lights, only a few metres away from him?

      Whilst he’s tucking into a handful of termites, is the crew munching on chocolate bars and sipping hot coffee?

      It’d be great to see a ‘making of’ special!

    • Melissa says:

      03:06pm | 31/03/10

      Me too! I was watching yesterday i think it was when he was swinging through trees like tarzan and having a pretty hard time of it, but the camera follows him effortlessly. How does that work??

      Survivorman is defs more hardcore than Bear, and a bit strange to go along with it!

    • Lucy Kippist

      Lucy Kippist says:

      12:08pm | 31/03/10

      At the risk of being a killjoy, I read this article a few months ago after a friend suggested that things on that show might not be as hard as they seem. Here’s a link: http://nyti.ms/bWULPF Even so ... I still love the show and I think he’s pretty incredible.How many people do you know that could climb out of those mangroves in South America???

    • Mike says:

      02:14pm | 31/03/10

      If you want to see a real man doing it alone against the elements, you should watch Survivorman. Les Stroud is no pretty boy Bear Grylls. He’s a loony canadian who went out without a camera crew (did all the filming himself) for three seasons showing how to survive in various environments.

    • John T says:

      02:56pm | 31/03/10

      Les Stroud has done some really weird trips (in more than one sense of the word) eg to PNG where he followed the locals’ advice and chewed betel nut, with…um…very interesting effects on his mind and body, (some of) which you can see on DVD.
      On the other hand his Australian episode was much more conventional: it looks as if it was cobbled together in a few days in the Flinders Ranges and without the benefit of any indigenous stimulants. I don’t think we even got to hear his harmonica.

    • David C says:

      03:24pm | 31/03/10

      Bear is awesome, particularly enjoyed the one where he was stung by bees and his face blew up.
      But personally as far as cooking shows go how can you go past “Iron Chef” especially when it ifolloed by “Rockwiz” ?

    • Michael says:

      04:30pm | 31/03/10

      I haven’t see Bear but I’ve had years of eating raw animal foods without any problems. And now I usually prefer it over cooked. Raw meat and fish has texture whereas cooked doesn’t: that means it’s chewable. Cooked meat often takes a ton of chewing. Health problems forced me to try eating this way (google “Aajonus” to see the guy who saved himself by eating raw). You do need to get soft cuts of meat, and fish and eggs must be fresh, etc. I make a simple drained-curd cheese from raw goats milk and it’s a buzz. Scoffing cuts of raw porterhouse beef is yummo. But there’s no chance in hell that I’m going to eat eyeballs, testicles, spiders, etc.

    • Mr T says:

      05:07pm | 31/03/10

      In the Australian episode he soaks his shirt in urine and wraps it around his head to fight against the heat. Desperate times call for desperate measures but I reckon I’d wait longer then 25 minutes after the helicopter dropped me off before taking a wizz on my noggin.

    • Scott MacKillop says:

      05:18pm | 31/03/10

      “Matt Preston scares my kids stupid with his swathe Dracula looks”

      I couldn’t put my finger on who he reminded me of, but you have it spot on.

    • iansand says:

      06:36pm | 31/03/10

      Suave, I think.

    • JeremiahBullfrog says:

      09:55am | 01/04/10

      Bear’s kids : Huckleberry and Marmaduke?! Strewth, that should toughen them up! I guess if they get sick of the teasing, they can always adopt new names like dad, e.g. Huckleberry ‘Hound dog’ or Marmaduke ‘Meerkat’ Grylls are two that spring to mind…

 

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