© 2018 FOX Broadcasting. Contestants Avery, Quani and Beni in the two-hour “Junior Edition: The Finale Pt 1/Junior Edition: The Finale Pt 2 – The Winner” season finale episode of MASTERCHEF airing Friday, May 18 (8:00-10:00 PM ET/PT) on FOX.
Tonight is the season premiere of Masterchef Junior on Fox at 8pm ET/PT.
This season, the show will be judged by Gordon Ramsay, Christina Tosi, and Aaron Sanchez.
Masterchef Junior features children ages 8-13. It premiered on Friday, September 27, 2013, and is based off the British series Junior Masterchef.
In a 2017 interview with Deadline, Ramsay was asked what initially piqued his interest when it came to Masterchef Junior. He responded, “First of all, I’m fed up with the level of blame that kids get due to their bad eating habits. It’s not the kids—let’s get that frank. It’s the frickin’ parents. Kids only eat what the parents do, so what MasterChef Junior has become is a sort of benchmark, where kids are re-educating parents and becoming way more fierce than their parents were.”
He continued, “My goal, down the line, is to have a curriculum at every high school in the country where nutrition and cooking are as important as geography and history because it’s the one thing they need to do three times a day, seven days a week, is eat. That is the center point, in terms of the message that this program is delivering, which is great news.”
Any child between the ages of 8 and 13 can apply to become a contestant on the series. They may apply online or attend an open casting call. Each season, twelve children come contestants on the series.
Gordon Ramsay, who judges the show, is a household name at this point. The British chef is known for his sometimes abrasive temper, and owns many of his own restaurants. He has presented a number of TV programs over the course of his career, including Hell’s Kitchen, The F Word, Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares, along with MasterChef, and Hotel Hell.
Asked what he’s learned from watching the children on Masterchef Junior, Ramsay says, “My goal, down the line, is to have a curriculum at every high school in the country where nutrition and cooking are as important as geography and history because it’s the one thing they need to do three times a day, seven days a week, is eat. That is the center point, in terms of the message that this program is delivering, which is great news.”
At the time of the interview, he also said that lowering the age to six or seven was something production was looking into. “They’re becoming talented even earlier…” he explained.
Be sure to tune into tonight’s episode of Masterchef Junior 2019 on Fox at 8pm ET/PT.