by Jarrah Hodge

In board gaming sometimes we talk about themes that seem “tacked on”. It’s what happens when a game designer makes a game and then decides to set it in, say, Ancient Egypt, even though it doesn’t seem to have anything to do with the way the game is played.

And that’s kind of how last night’s episode of Top Chef Canada felt to me as well. As usual, I enjoyed most of the episode, but I thought the theme deserved a little critique.

(Alert: spoilers ahead)

For the elimination challenge, the chefs were paired off and asked to create hors d’ouevres for a baby shower for last season’s host Thea Andrews and current judge Shereen Arazam. Since one of the women is expecting a boy and the other expecting a girl, the chefs were tasked with creating a “girl dish” and a “boy dish” for each team.

This made no sense to me because food doesn’t innately appeal to someone based on gender. I watch a lot of cooking shows and though it may have happened, I’ve never seen a judge say they didn’t like a dish because it was “too masculine” or “too feminine”. Read more