The latest episode of Celebrity MasterChef SA demanded teamwork from the famous contestants in their pasta relay challenge. In a professional kitchen working as part of a team is essential, which is exactly what the challenge conveyed. Key to teamwork is communication, and the celebrities learnt this the hard way.

Being allowed only 30 seconds during handovers to tell their team member what still needed to be done introduced them to the rushed environment of the professional kitchen. In this high-pressured space you need to explain as much as you can as quickly as possible, because there are hungry customers waiting!

The judges threw a spanner in the works by confining those who had completed their relay round to the gallery, and instructing them to keep their lips zipped – not easy for a bunch of talkative and energetic celebrities to do. Besides providing plenty of entertainment, it illustrated the panic and problems that ensue when chefs don’t communicate properly. Chris almost went into a flat spin when he saw Lerato ignoring his wet, mushy dough.

Although the culinary world is seeing many shifts, the classical structure implemented by the legendary French chef Auguste Escoffier is still used in many restaurants. The leader in the kitchen is known as the executive chef and this is the person who determines the direction and focus of the work to be done.

Having won the challenge last week, the leading roles went to Terence and Tol A$$ Mo, and the two men took to the task in completely different ways. Both were in the last round of the relay and Mo was as cool as a cucumber as he placed the finishing touches on the red team’s pasta dish, whistling and whirling about, as the final countdown began.

Terence, meanwhile, was sweating and stressing as he painstakingly perfected the blue team’s dish. His slow pace frustrated Sade to no end, but it paid off, as the blue team emerged victorious. While Mo’s rapid running order may be more suited to the fast pace of the professional world, it should not come at the cost of the dish. The perfect combo for an executive chef would then be a mixture of Mo and Terence’s best qualities.

As for the rest of the roles in the kitchen, these include sous-chefs (the second-in-charge, so to speak) and chefs de partie such as the saucier, poissonier, potager and garde-manger. For the sweet stuff there’s the patissier and then there are all the helpers, floor staff and front of house.

We can thank Escoffier for all the funny French names we now have to contend with. For those of us not acquainted with the language of love (and food), we can just refer to the chefs de partie as the sauce guy, the fish girl, the soup person and the dude in charge of the pantry.

Which role do you think the celebrities are best suited for, and what do you think you would be able to handle best?

Originally published on MasterChef South Africa