What The Biggest Fans Don't Know About MasterChef Junior

With Masterchef Junior set to air its eighth season on Fox sometime in 2020, viewers still can't seem to get enough. But what's happening behind the scenes, and what's Gordon Ramsay really like with the kids? We decided to take a deeper look. Here's what you might not have known about Masterchef Junior. As any teenage television star could probably tell you, being cast in a TV show or movie doesn't allow you to get out of school. And the Masterchef Junior crew has had a plan in place to continue schooling for their contestants since the beginning. When asked about the first season, executive producer Robin Ashbrook told HuffPost that it took almost three weeks to film. So you can imagine no school district would allow a child to be out of school for that long. According to Ashbrook, there are classrooms right next to the kitchen so mandatory class requirements can be fulfilled, in between the four hours of filming each day. The only thing that's better about the adult Masterchef is that the adults have no school to do." And those schooling requirements have stayed in place as the show recruits new contestants, although the timing requirements have changed significantly. According to the casting requirements, the contestants selected must be available for filming for close to nine weeks, missing a whole lot more school in their hometown. However, the requirements do note that a teacher will be on set during filming to fulfill school requirements during that time. At least if the whole cooking thing doesn't work out, they still have reading, writing, and arithmetic. As if the filming requirements for the kids weren't complicated enough, producers throw parents into the mix as well. But if you really think about it, putting a child on a plane alone to film a show for hours on end is probably not the best idea. According to the Masterchef Junior casting requirements, if selected, the child competing and one parent will need to be available during the entire timeline of filming. So not only is the child making a huge time commitment, as well as working around schooling, the parents are leaving work for weeks on end to support their child on the show. When asked about parental inclusion on the show's first season, Robin Ashbrook told HuffPost there was a chaperone on set at all times, saying, "...they were at all times able to see what was going on in the kitchen. All of the parents actually sat together and watched what happened. They really bonded. It certainly wasn't a dance mom's atmosphere." When it comes to cooking shows, the prize purses can certainly vary. On one hand, you have The Great British Baking Show only dishing up a trophy and a cake stand, while Masterchef hands out a whopping $250,000. But again, Masterchef is made up of well-trained adults. Yet Masterchef Junior gets pretty close to its adult sibling, handing out a trophy and an astonishing $100,000 to the contestant between the ages of 8 and 13 who wins. What's a kid to do with $100,000 before they even hit their teenage years? As it turns out, the winner is awarded a trophy and a check, but that money is inaccessible until the child turns 18. Season 7 winner, 13-year-old Che Spiotta told Parade he already was thinking of what to do with his money when he could finally access it, saying, "...I will definitely save some of it. I will get a nice gift for my mom because she helped me so much through the whole thing. She was out in L.A. with me and she organized everything, so I will get her a nice gift." After years of watching Masterchef, with Ramsay's very straightforward and blatant critiques, "...so if you want to lose this challenge, continue working like you are. If you won this challenge, step up." or his yelling at chefs on Hell's Kitchen, "...you dirty pigs! Get out! Get out!" the idea of him hosting a version of a cooking show entirely devoted to kids was pretty difficult to grasp for many viewers. But Ramsay has certainly shocked viewers over the past seasons, showing a caring side that many hadn't seen before. He's given the kids plenty of constructive feedback throughout the course of the show, even hugging some of the contestants when they've had a particularly rough day. Season 6 contestant Evan Estrada confirmed Ramsay's soft side when filming Masterchef Jr. when he told the Chicago Tribune, "...he's absolutely amazing. He is not mean at all. He is super fun. He loves to joke." As with any cooking show, you really have to think about how it's possible to work with so many sharp objects under such furious time constraints. But on Masterchef Jr., things go shockingly smoothly. In fact, Sandy Birdsong, culinary producer for the show, told Salon magazine that the kids actually cut themselves far less than the adults do on Masterchef. "...okay, good luck. Watch those fingers." But just in case their challenge goes awry and they do injure themselves, the show has plenty of medics on standby. According to Robin Ashbrook, there's a medic at the end of every single row of stations on standby, just in case. He told HuffPost, "...he has his or her eyes on one kid at all times. There's no such thing as rubber knives and pretend boiling water on this show." As it goes with any reality cooking show, there has to be one clear winner, and the rest of the contestants will be eliminated along the way. And in theory, those contestants should be judged based on their culinary skills or the specific requirements of each challenge. But some Masterchef Jr. viewers haven't been so convinced. Caroline Framke published her concerns in The Atlantic, noting a confusing scene from the show's second season. According to Framke, the end of the season showed a pop-up restaurant challenge in which Una, a 9-year-old girl, and Sean, a 12-year-old Asian-American boy, were competing on a team with their leader, Samuel, a 12-year-old white boy. After Samuel made huge missteps during the competition and failed to serve as a good team leader, he was still the one to stay, with judge Graham Elliott at the time stating, "...crucially, you were the one that looked the most confident in that environment." Framke said of the show, "...it can still be a microcosm of the same old exhausting gender and race biases ingrained in daily life." If you've watched the show time and time again, you've seen the kids helping each other out in the kitchen. It's not exactly in a child's nature to be terribly competitive, and that can be seen on the show. But what if they were prepped ahead of time so they were, indeed, quite confident of their competition skills far before filming begins? Now, are you confident? Yes, I am." After the second season began to air in Australia in 2011, The Herald Sun reported that the reality of the show may not be all that real. The show's production company, Shine, said the contestants did receive some information about challenges ahead of time, but not the recipes. Parents of a contestant anonymously told The Herald Sun that the young chefs know what they will be asked to cook ahead of time, allowing them to work on the dishes at home, saying, "[The kids act all surprised, but they have had the recipes for weeks.] Whether they're receiving tips ahead of time or full recipes, it does make you wonder. After all, the kids certainly don't seem to crack under pressure too easily on the show." When it comes to reality cooking shows, things get heated. Contestants have meltdowns when making the simplest of mistakes during a challenge, or they cry when they're sent home. And while you see a bit of this on cooking shows with adults, you definitely see it on a show focused on 8- to 13-year-olds. But crying may actually be encouraged on MasterChef Junior. As the judges let kids know, it's okay not to hold it back. Gordon Ramsay told Deadline that it's healthy for the kids to cry when they receive a critique in the kitchen, saying, "...bottling up emotions can lead to dangerous things. I think crying is healthy." Former judge Christina Tosi told Deadline that it was her goal not to make the kids cry, but in reality, it's inevitable. First things first, when you're going to launch a cooking competition show on television, it needs to have contestants. "...are you the next MasterChef Junior? Or do you know a talented home cook?" But when MasterChef Junior producers began their search for the inaugural season, they didn't expand their reach terribly far. In a 2013 interview with HuffPost, Robin Ashbrook said that the show was picked up by Fox a little late in the game, so there may not have been as much time for casting as they would have liked, explaining, "...we actually physically sat and did casting sessions in two cities, New York and Los Angeles. My intention and hope is that, for any future seasons, we'll cast much wider." As of 2019, the castings had been increased to include a bigger demographic, but not by much. The 2019 castings were scheduled in Houston, New York, Atlanta, and Los Angeles. Although auditioning for a reality cooking show can sometimes seem just as simple as cooking an elaborate dish and catching the process on camera for submission, the MasterChef Junior requirements are a bit more complicated. "...I got an apron! Yay!" Castings are set up as pre-registered open calls, and MasterChef Junior's casting requirements note that not everybody that shows up will be given an opportunity to audition. According to Kelly Hendon, whose daughter Kate ended up on the show, there were close to 300 kids at the castings she and Kate went to in Atlanta. The pair told the Randolph-Leader that part of the process was to cook an egg and to cut food with a knife. After making it past that first tryout, Kate was called back to Atlanta to make a dish for the producers, and it was filmed to see how well she did in front of the camera. The next step included interviews, psychological evaluations, background checks, and even video tours of her family home, but she still didn't know if she had made it. Finally, Kate was called to California for a final audition of 48 kids, and she was one of the 24 selected to be on the show. Talk about a long, complicated process. It's hard to imagine putting three adults in a room with 24 kids and allowing them to critique their mighty masterpieces along the way. But perhaps the selection in judges was all part of the plan, as all of the judges on the show are, in fact, parents too, and they probably understand a thing or two about kids. Gordon Ramsay has five children of his own, and the newest judge, Daphne Oz, has four kids of her own. Aaron Sanchez told Parade in a 2019 interview that since he and Ramsay are both parents, they might be better equipped to work with the kids on the show. He explained, "...maybe because Gordon and I are parents and we understand the patience level it takes with kids, how they retain information, and how long it takes to improve, so I never get frustrated." "...I'm making lobster tacos." "...What? You are speaking my language." MasterChef Junior turned the world of cooking shows on its head when it debuted in 2013, crowning children under the age of 14 with the title of a lifetime. And with that title, winners of the show have gone on to continue showing off their culinary skills in a multitude of ways. The winner crowned in the first season, Alexander Weiss, has proven that a win in the MasterChef Junior kitchen can lead to years of culinary success. Weiss, who was 13 when he won the competition, certainly didn't go back to a typical teenage life after collecting his trophy. The Recipe reported in 2018 that Weiss had been devoting his time to working in a number of restaurant kitchens after the show, and according to his own Facebook page, he's now offering in-home dining experiences for personal clients. The first season winner has also gone on to attend the Culinary Institute of America, something he noted on his Instagram that he's been dreaming of since the age of 13. Even if only one of the contestants can take home the ultimate grand prize trophy and the $100,000, it doesn't mean the whole experience was a total loss. The amount of exposure the kids get by being on the show and demonstrating their culinary aptitude continues to open doors for them as they get older. The MasterChef Junior name has continued to make that happen for several of the previous contestants already, putting their live show on the road. MasterChef Junior Live launched in September 2019 and brought previous winners, as well as seasoned fan favorites, to live stages, where they competed in front of crowds across the U.S. The 2020 tour is headed to at least 40 tour stops, giving previous contestants exposure to traveling the U.S. and the ability to continue connecting with their fans. Check out one of our newest videos right here! Plus, even more Mashed videos about your favorite cooking shows are coming soon. Subscribe to our YouTube channel and hit the bell so you don't miss a single one.