There is no MasterChef without controversy. If in the last edition of the Celebrity it was Patricia Conde and her accusations of cheating and "substances", in MasterChef 11 it has been a massive food poisoning. The first that occurs in culinary talent. "This is an absolutely exceptional case in these 11 years of MasterChef in Spain, a program where it is an absolute priority to guarantee the food care of the people involved," Shine Iberia, the producer of the program after finding himself again in the target by the complaint of one of the affected diners, told EL MUNDO.

It all happened in the recording of the outdoor test of the fourth program of MasterChef 11, broadcast this Sunday after the cancellation last Tuesday of the broadcast by the Copa del Rey. The aspirants moved to the Oceanogràfic, in the City of Arts and Sciences of Valencia, where they had to prepare different dishes for workers of the center to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the largest aquarium in Europe.

The teams cooked a menu by chef Rakel Cernicharo (a Repsol sun) for 120 workers at this aquarium, which paid tribute to the marine world. As always in the talent the teams were divided into two, the blue team and the red team that lived a lot of tension during the cooking. In fact, Cernicharo warned several times that the dishes had enough preparation failures, but no one suspected that any of the ingredients could be in poor condition.

The menu was mainly composed of seafood: trip to India with Valencian clòtxina, a kind of mussel, but smaller; a first course, Valencian mollusca, composed of oysters, clams and seaweed-based pesto; the second course, sea bass suquet thai, "a more sophisticated and traveling stew", with coconut, date and peanut; and dessert, Japanese cheesecake and seaweed, "a very tasty dessert with many textures".

Although the producer of MasterChef has acknowledged the poisoning, it is unknown which of all the dishes that were prepared and presented caused "more than half" of the diners to fall ill.

Researched by Public Health

The diner, Irene, one of the workers ofl Oceanogàfic, who after publishing on social networks that "more than 70 people ended up intoxicated" had to close her Twitter account, said after the broadcast of the program that her company "informed MasterChef of what happened", but "the thing did not come to anything": "The following days we could not go to work. Public Health called us to investigate what happened, but it came to nothing."

"Four of my colleagues and I are at the table," continues the thread of a photograph of the day of the recording of her with her companions at one of the MasterChef tables. "All with gastroenteritis. The next night I had to go to the emergency room to have Primperan injected into my ass so I could stop vomiting. I lost 5 kilos in three days," he added, recalling that the program was recorded last January so everyone has recovered. However, what has most outraged this diner is that "they have not even had the decency to write to us to apologize."

"Thank you MasterChef for the worst dining experience I've ever had in my life. Since we are encouraging you to investigate a little more also the relationship of MasterChef with intensive livestock. Kiss!", Irene concluded.

The response and apologies of MasterChef came hours later through a brief statement and with the controversy already on the table. Shine Iberia confirmed the poisoning and described it as "an absolutely exceptional case". Indeed, in the 11-year history of the program there has never been a mass poisoning, not even a mild poisoning.

Shine Iberia claimed to "regret very much" what happened and defended itself from the accusations of not having cared about the intoxicated diners stating that "he was in contact at all times through the Oceanogràfic, being company personnel".

According to MasterChef's explanations, in the outdoor test of Valencia the food "was analyzed at origin with positive results and its traceability was guaranteed throughout the process". In fact, the producer assures that the analysis and documentation of the process and treatment of the food that was used and cooked in said test were presented to the competent authorities: "The competent health authorities were informed and documented when we became aware of the facts."

At the moment, neither the Oceanogràfic nor the competent authorities have ruled on the poisoning or on its origin.

  • Masterchef

According to The Trust Project criteria

Learn more