Dear George, Gary and Matt,

Here is a real challenge for your MasterChef contestants. Forget about catering for the delegates at the United Nations, first class Qantas passengers and such like. Forget about the top chefs and various celebrities from across the globe.

Ask your dedicated amateur cooks to come up with something halfway decent for the frail, aged residents of our Australian aged-care homes!

Perhaps… we could even aim for something both tasty and nutritious.

Here is the task! They must produce a meal; let us say for 100 residents, for the cheapest possible cost.

Remember that, although aged-care providers receive large government subsides and it is reported that many have made healthy profits in recent years, they have a GRAND PLAN which states that they are 'chronically underfunded'.

Your contestants must use the ingredients provided in the home's kitchen - or, more likely, in the kitchen of the private-for-profit company that came up with the cheapest catering contract.

This will rule out many fresh ingredients, so you can forget about all those fancy herbs and edible flowers that so often decorate the dishes produced in the MasterChef kitchen.

In this challenge, the main ingredients will be dehydrated substances generally used to make soup, soggy white bread and frozen dim sims, chicken nuggets and party pies. 

Possibly, they could find some hot dogs and potato wedges. While we all love to see those beautifully-plated, luscious desserts made in the MasterChef kitchen, a real challenge would be to make something edible out of pre-prepared mousse and custard powder. There will surely be some of that on hand.  

One thing, your contestants won’t have to worry about serving the meal hot - as most likely there will not be enough staff available to assist the frail residents with their meal in a timely manner.  Many are used to eating cold food.
 
And, although those keen, young MasterChef competitors will be cooking for residents of varied ages, backgrounds and interests, they will generally be able to give them all the same thing. After all, we don’t expect that very old people need to be making choices about what they eat!

Another advantage in this challenge is that, when you are plating up, servings can be quite small. We have an expert opinion here from a Director of Nursing who says, 'You don't want to be serving them a big meal at night. They can't get to sleep'.

So judges, if you really want to find a champion worthy of your top-rating show we suggest you introduce the ultimate challenge… Nursing Home MasterChef!

Yours sincerely,
The Columnist - Aged Care Crisis.