Joe Bastianich Critiques His Entire Family's Cooking Skills In This Sour Candy Challenge
The notoriously sour 'Masterchef' judge, Joe Bastianich pays for his sins in this ultimate sour candy challenge. Any celebrities you think can do better?
Transcript
00:00 Is all this your idea?
00:01 - Yeah.
00:02 (laughing)
00:02 - Very demented.
00:03 - Thank you.
00:05 - Hi, I'm Joe from MasterChef
00:06 and I'm here to play Suck It Up.
00:08 It's like never have I ever,
00:10 but everything I have done,
00:11 never have I ever been critical of my kids' cooking.
00:14 (laughing)
00:16 I have to eat one of these candies.
00:18 As the questions get harder,
00:19 the candy gets more sour.
00:21 Oh, (beep)
00:23 Look at that.
00:23 Whoever makes these should be fired.
00:25 Let's do this.
00:26 (upbeat music)
00:29 (upbeat music)
00:31 Never have I ever taken home leftovers from MasterChef.
00:35 No, I've never have, ever.
00:39 I love the soda bread.
00:40 - Thank you, sir.
00:42 - It has a depth of flavor.
00:43 Every ingredient makes sense.
00:45 And I would like to, on a rainy day, eat that whole bowl.
00:49 No, I'd take home, like, well, usually I'll eat it,
00:52 or I've like taken a plate off the set
00:55 and brought it into my dressing room and finished it.
00:57 It was really good.
00:58 I'd take it back to my house.
00:59 No.
01:00 Never have I ever eaten at Olive Garden.
01:05 I have eaten at Olive Garden.
01:07 I was really interested in the all you can eat
01:09 Brett Strick's salads and soup once.
01:11 And I went by myself and I ate at Olive Garden.
01:16 And it wasn't very good.
01:17 (upbeat music)
01:20 Shall I eat one of these?
01:26 (chewing)
01:29 Sour, familiar, nothing too interesting.
01:36 I've only been to Olive Garden, maybe twice.
01:39 It was equally bad both times.
01:41 You're gonna probably, Darden's probably gonna wanna
01:43 buy my restaurant company.
01:44 I just [beep] blew that deal.
01:46 Anyway, go ahead.
01:47 Never have I ever been critical of my kids' cooking.
01:50 (laughing)
01:52 We have a genetic cooking problem in our house.
01:55 Now as you know, children genetically are only half
01:58 made of your DNA.
02:00 The other half of them is composed of another person's DNA.
02:02 In this case, a woman named Dina,
02:06 who really doesn't consider salt to be an ingredient
02:09 in the kitchen.
02:10 I.e. like there could be a kitchen with no salt in it at all.
02:14 So this brings us to the point that I think some of my
02:17 children have genetically been infected by this disease
02:23 this disease.
02:25 So yes, I have criticized my children's food.
02:29 Not only am I advising you to step up your cooking game,
02:33 I'm also advising you to have a little respect.
02:35 So the other side of that, one of my children is here,
02:37 Ethan, and he's the least effective of them all.
02:40 He's the one that has probably more of my DNA.
02:42 So sometimes, and this is kind of like passive aggressive.
02:46 When I cook and Dina's in the kitchen,
02:48 I over salt to compensate for her lack of salting,
02:51 just in general.
02:52 Like to the point where you can throw the food away,
02:54 but it's just like the big F you.
02:56 Sorry.
02:57 What are these?
02:58 Japanese?
02:59 What are these?
03:00 Woo.
03:01 I like that.
03:03 In a very kind of sadistic lemony way.
03:05 This makes me want to have vodka.
03:07 Mm.
03:10 Never have I ever gotten sick from something
03:12 I ate while judging.
03:13 No, this is not true.
03:15 I have gotten sick.
03:16 - Is it raw?
03:17 - It is raw.
03:22 I've gotten sick, physically sick,
03:24 from contaminated raw fish.
03:28 One dish stood out as appalling.
03:32 One home cook plated raw fish.
03:35 Where I violently vomited all over my dressing room
03:42 for like three hours and couldn't finish the day of shooting
03:45 and then once I was emotionally or maybe psychologically
03:49 sickened by the fact that I had eaten mac and cheese
03:54 made with this lady's breast milk.
03:56 - I am making baked macaroni and cheese with a major twist.
03:59 - And what's the twist?
04:00 - Breast milk.
04:01 - Which is really a borderline thing
04:06 that if human, adult human beings should consume
04:10 other human beings' breast milk is borderline.
04:13 I'm not really sure ethically where I stand on it.
04:16 Probably against it.
04:17 So, twice.
04:19 It was a contestant, he made, what did he call it?
04:26 Hillbilly sushi.
04:27 So he had like rattlesnakes and alligators
04:29 and it wasn't like real fish,
04:31 it was like nasty swamp animals sushi.
04:34 And I got totally sick.
04:36 Whoa.
04:43 People actually buy this stuff and like wanna eat it?
04:46 [chewing]
04:48 It's one of those things that's like
04:50 definitely not pleasurable.
04:51 It's like sour grapes.
04:54 I'm kind of afraid of these.
04:55 If it goes up from here, then I'm kind of afraid of these.
04:59 And this last one, it looks like someone like
05:01 in your kitchens related to the Unabomber made this.
05:04 Never have I ever felt bad after giving a bad review.
05:10 You know what it is?
05:11 It's garbage is what it is.
05:13 What you did on that dish is inappropriate
05:15 and ultimately kind of disgusting.
05:18 Well, I mean, you're talking about judging.
05:20 We don't review contestants, I'm a judge.
05:23 The show's called MasterChef, we judge their cooking.
05:26 There has to be a winner and there has to be a loser.
05:29 So I need to be critical.
05:30 We're searching for the best home cook in America.
05:33 So criticizing someone's food is part and parcel
05:37 for my job and what I do.
05:39 Have I ever felt bad?
05:42 I think that sometimes, if I can give a nasty review
05:46 to someone who really cooks bad food
05:48 and is also presumptuous and obnoxious.
05:51 You don't have to eat it, really, you don't.
05:53 I'm a judge here, so why don't you let me figure out
05:56 what I have to do and what I don't have to do.
05:58 Then it's very, very easy for me to do that.
06:01 Where it gets more difficult is like,
06:04 sweet little housewife from Minnesota comes in
06:09 with some sort of like, the German beer cheese soup.
06:13 It was one of the most disgusting things I ever ate.
06:16 And it was so bad, I responded appropriately
06:19 and I might have insulted her personally.
06:21 - This is a great example of what garbage is.
06:29 If you're gonna serve us crap like that,
06:31 then you're really wasting our time.
06:33 And you guys, think about what we're here to do
06:36 at this point in the competition.
06:38 Jennifer, that is really disappointing.
06:40 You were on a great trajectory
06:42 and I don't know where that leaves you, quite frankly.
06:45 - And I did feel bad because I should insult
06:48 middle-aged housewives from the Midwest.
06:51 So I guess I have to eat one of these.
06:53 Is there a flavor that's better?
06:54 Maybe the blue one, it'll be icy blue.
06:57 I'm thinking icy blue.
06:58 Oh, [beep]
07:03 Look at that, that's like alive.
07:05 I feel more alive than I did before I ate that.
07:07 - Are there people who actually like this stuff?
07:10 You like this?
07:11 Is all this your idea?
07:13 - Yes.
07:13 [laughing]
07:14 - Very demented.
07:15 - Thank you.
07:16 - Well, once you get out past the outer coating,
07:21 there's a little bit more sugar.
07:22 And then this one gets like kinder and gentler
07:26 once you get inside.
07:27 It's probably like your personality.
07:28 I mean, being that you invented this,
07:31 something has to reflect.
07:32 So you're probably maybe a little bit sour
07:34 and like hard to get through in the beginning.
07:37 But then once you lick through the outside sourness,
07:40 it gets to like a much sweeter, kinder kind of candy.
07:44 - That's actually pretty good.
07:46 I'm a cancer, I'm a crab.
07:47 - Never have I ever didn't like something my mom cooked.
07:53 Please turn around and welcome best-selling cookbook author
07:58 and restaurateur,
07:59 Mama.
08:03 [gasping]
08:04 - Oh my God!
08:05 [laughing]
08:07 - So that would never, have I never disliked something?
08:11 No, of course I've disliked things.
08:13 My mom, she overcooks things all the time.
08:16 I mean, like, even though she's like a professional chef,
08:19 it doesn't mean that everything she cooks is perfect.
08:22 - My mom came from New York and from Italy.
08:24 They asked me, "What is the standard of pasta?"
08:27 And I said, "There's only one standard, it's my mother."
08:29 - And she has like this kind of way of cooking
08:32 where like she cooks like a lot of different things
08:35 and then takes like warm, semi-clean dishrags,
08:38 damp, and covers them.
08:39 So they kind of stay warm on the counter.
08:42 You ever see that technique?
08:43 Like, you know, like to keep like the humidity
08:45 and warmth in and then like everything kind of gets
08:48 a little bit overcooked and steamed
08:51 and then maybe even the worst case scenario
08:54 picks up a little bit of stink from the dishrag
08:56 that has been laid over it.
08:58 - Look.
08:59 - Ah, very nice.
09:00 - Ah!
09:00 [laughing]
09:02 - It's not a good scene.
09:03 I mean, I told her like if she overcooks a steak,
09:05 I tell her, I said, "Mom, this is overcooked.
09:07 "This is gross.
09:08 "Like, I can't eat this like this.
09:09 "Make me something else."
09:11 Come on, Ma!
09:12 Do it right!
09:14 Or do it twice.
09:15 Why does it have to be so big?
09:18 Can I bite it in half?
09:19 You wouldn't recommend biting it?
09:21 Don't do it.
09:22 Should I really be afraid?
09:23 Is this gonna be that bad?
09:24 - I'm scared.
09:25 - I'm kinda nervous.
09:26 [upbeat music]
09:29 Aside from the flavor being gross,
09:39 why not make it like a good flavor at least?
09:41 It tastes like [beep]
09:42 No, I'm gonna finish it.
09:43 It tastes like every liquid brown substitute,
09:46 sugar substitute you've ever had.
09:48 You know, like bad agave, bad molasses,
09:52 bad cane brown sugar, nasty [beep]
09:56 all mixed together,
09:57 covered by some sort of a tartaric acid.
10:00 I happen to know what tartaric acid tastes like
10:02 'cause I'm a wine maker,
10:04 and we use tartaric acid to acidulate wines.
10:07 It's not even the sourness or the aggressiveness of this.
10:10 It's just the taste is terrible.
10:11 Whoever makes these should be fired.
10:13 Not worth it.
10:17 But I think that sour,
10:19 or the ability to tolerate sour,
10:21 is something that comes with life experience.
10:25 And being an adult professional wine taster,
10:30 and I've done this my whole life,
10:31 tasting acidity and tartness
10:34 is something that my palate is used to.
10:37 So I think that I have a unique advantage
10:41 amongst you children.
10:42 Delish, thanks so much for having me.
10:46 It's been a sour experience.
10:48 But for a sweeter experience,
10:49 you can tune in to MasterChef on Fox
10:52 Wednesday nights at eight o'clock.
10:53 We'll be looking for America's next MasterChef.
10:56 See you there.
10:57 (upbeat music)
11:00 (upbeat music)