Masterchef - the last days of Rome?

Why does Masterchef make me feel so very uncomfortable? I can't precisely put my finger on it, but it revolves somewhere around the obsessive perfectionism combined with the obvious waste of superb quality food.

I know that tons of food are thrown away every day and that the Masterchef competition discards less than a full stop on a hot air balloon, in the grand scheme of things. I know that in restaurants around the globe people expect and are prepared to pay the equivalent of some peoples' annual income for one exceptionally imaginative and exquisite meal. I also acknowledge the talent, skill and creativity of those involved. I know these things, yet still... In the end the diner looks at it for a few moments, puts it in their mouth, experiences aroma, flavour and texture, then swallows it. And that's it - other than the unavoidable processes of digestion and excretion to follow. Essentially, it ends up as fuel and waste.

So accepting that as too simplistic, and great food is also culture, pleasure, art and joy, what are we to make of such extraordinary investment in something so completely perishable? What does it say about our culture? If you add up the spend of all the Michelin starred restaurants and look at how long their creations last, it makes the government's investment in the Millenium Dome look positively millenial. It makes us a culture focussed on this moment, on personal pleasure and on the aspiration to spend fortunes on the pursuit and claim of the highest pleasures. And probably to chalk them up as notches on the dining table of personal achievement ready for sharing at the next well-attended dinner party.

I would describe someone for whom the creation, presentation, and flavour of Michelin starred food is of such high importance as an aesthete. That must make me a philistine, then. Or a barbarian. Both crop up on internet sites as the opposite of aesthete. But so does ethicist and realist. In my search to understand my instinctive discomfort, I came across Kierkegaard who wrote that the 'aesthete suffers from boredom, melancholy and a sense of emptiness....that his way of life is ultimately nihilistic and tends to lead to despair since pleasure is so transient'. click here for more

Well, that seems like self-justification to me. I can't profess myself blissful in my simplicity. But while so many eat so little, and others eat so much of such poor quality, Masterchef shows me the world in which a few consume the very, very best. Actually they taste a morsel, push it around their plates and declare it fractionally undercooked, or 3 grams under weight, and thus unfit for human consumption. I think it entirely normal, rational and yes, ethical, to find this uncomfortable. And if that makes me a philistine and a barbarian then I'll wear both badges with pride.