MasterChef is nothing if not a show of subtlety and secrets: Why do they keep a fully-fledged bottle shop in the pantry? What if the real Mystery Box was the friends we made along the way? If the work stations are all moveable then where the fuck does the water and gas come from? And so on. But of all the conundrums the show has thrown up in its 11-odd years on air, perhaps none are more mysterious that the drawing Poh created for last night’s Pressure Test.
Rather than set the contestants the task of following some other chef’s outrageous recipe, last night’s elimination challenge saw the group of black aproned folk tasked with coming up with their own recipe, writing it down, and then creating it in the MasterChef kitchen inside two hours. The Take Home Exam of challenges. You dead set could’ve written “run to shop, buy 12 pack party pies, unwrap, heat, serve” and it would’ve hit the brief.
But while everyone’s recipe books contained detailed, if not a little haphazard, notes and figures on what they were all planning to cook, Poh’s book was swiftly revealed to contain something else entirely.
Early in the episode, judges Andy Allen and Jock Zonfrillo stood in bewilderment at this mysterious drawing Poh had scribbled down.
What could it possibly be? There is simply no way to tell. It could be literally anything.
Applying a forensic-level of analysis to that drawing only serves to throw up more questions than answers.
Gazing across the centre of the figure, we see what appears to be a suckered anus; a vortex with a central dot in which everything flows into.
Here, Poh is perhaps presenting a symbolic nucleus of existence; hypothesising some sort of Universe Entanglement theory, in which all celestial systems (the tree-like struts jutting out from the centre) serve a singular force; that unpredictability and chaos are mere constructs of the enfeebled human mind; that all matter exists in harmonious balance.
Zooming further out, Poh’s mysterious symbol becomes further unclear.
The central anus, now, is enveloped in rope. Two larger, more prolapsed rope anuses, to be exact. The protective yet fragile fabric that prevents the universal balance from ripping apart? Or a broader statement about how, on some level, everyone be a stone cold freak in bed? Real food for thought here.
But perhaps the clearest indication on Poh’s MasterChef message comes at the bottom of the page.
It’s obvious what that is. Really, it could not be any clearer. Even a blind stupid child could figure out what that is.
That’s right, it’s Ursa Major, the Two Pointers, and a modified interpretation of Libra; three star constellations that have absolutely no spiritual, astrological, or geographic connection whatsoever.
Unfortunately, with no other information available beyond that, it is simply up to us to draw our own conclusions as to what Poh has slipped onto Australian broadcast TV there.
Are we staring at a very early blueprint for the path to higher being? Is this a window into the soul of existence itself? Or does Poh simply enjoy butts and stars way more than any of us realise?
Like all things MasterChef-related, it contains multitudes.
