22 Of The Messiest Food Disasters To Unfold On Cooking Shows

Television is like running a restaurant in many ways. Both are high-pressure, competitive businesses. Both are influenced by ever-shifting trends and both are at the mercy of a demanding customer base. Cooking shows are the ultimate marriage of these two worlds and, as eager audiences know, they are unpredictable places where anything can happen.

When things go wrong in an "SNL" food sketch or comedy shows like "I Love Lucy," it's all part of the script; the gag has been crafted to get maximum laughs. The same can't be said for culinary competitions or live cookery segments on daytime T.V. It's funny when a contestant or a presenter loses control — but the authenticity behind these programs can also be a double-edged sword. Watching everything fall apart can also be awkward and even a bit shocking. Here's a look at some of the messiest food disasters to unfold on cooking shows.

In 2014, "The Great British Bake Off" launched in the United States under the title "The Great British Baking Show." American audiences joined the fun at Season 5, with episode four serving a hefty slice of drama. On the hottest day of the year, the contestants tackled the Showstopper task of making a baked Alaska.

Everything was fine until Diana Beard took Iain Watters' ice cream out of the freezer, leaving it out in 25 C heat for around a minute. Watters' response was unthinkable: He threw the soupy, gloopy cake in the trash and was subsequently eliminated. Social media users immediately howled for his reinstatement — presumably forgetting the episode had been recorded months earlier.

She was a star in the United States thanks to her show "The French Chef," but Julia Child was also a regular guest on "Late Night with David Letterman." The pair had amazing chemistry and were always fun to watch, even if the host wasn't always sure what she was doing.

Child's cookery segment on a 1986 edition of "Letterman" was a freewheeling masterclass, as she prepared a hamburger for the host. Undeterred by the broken hot plate, she renamed the dish "beef tartare gratinée," quipping Letterman would get "healthy" (rather than a disease) from eating raw meat. After turning a blowtorch on the cheese topping — with a timely sound effect — they both took a bite. Guess who enjoyed it more?

Cooking on live television in a studio kitchen can be tricky enough, but doing it outside cranks the risk factor up several notches. That's what celebrity chef and presenter John Torode discovered in 2019, when he tried to cook up a crab pasta dish on a Dorset beach for British daytime T.V. show "This Morning."

Mid-segment, he noticed a helicopter behind him. Torode cheerily waved before he realized it was coming in to land right next to his outdoor set-up, blowing food and equipment everywhere. In the studio, presenters Davina McCall and Rochelle Humes were helpless with laughter, but Torode soldiered on. "I've cooked in some really strange places in my life," he said, "I'll just keep on going I suppose," via X.

Actor and comedian Robin Williams was a joyously unpredictable guest on chat shows, but he was great fun in the kitchen, too. In 2014, he joined Martha Stewart for a live segment to rustle up some skirt steak tacos, and as she cooked, Williams treated the audience to several minutes of rapid-fire improv, hilarious accents, and just a dash of sauce.

While Stewart prepared a meat rub, Williams served up a performance that took in fake Shakespeare, a blink-and-you'd-miss-it impression of Mick Jagger, and a novel way to tenderize beef. Amid the chaos and sometimes naughty jokes, Stewart gamely grilled her veggies and meat, but Williams was the star, as she later acknowledged on social media.

Every contestant in a cooking competition wants to make an impression. Whether it's good or bad is down to them, but in 2018, "Chopped Champs Throwdown" participant Syrena Johnson's name was on the judges lips for all the wrong reasons. With five minutes to go, Johnson threw some butter in a pan, ready to caramelize some carrots.

Suddenly, the butter caught fire (she should have used this tip) and as flames leapt in the pan, Johnson's next move shocked judges Alex Guarnaschelli and Chris Santos: She poured the still-burning butter straight in the garbage, setting it on fire, too. While the panel acknowledged it was a first for the show, a member of the crew calmly removed the trash can and put out the fire.

Cooking for Thanksgiving and Christmas takes a lot of organization, so help is always welcome. In 2020, British chef James Martin's was demonstrating dishes that could be done in advance in a live segment for "This Morning." It did not go well. His cauliflower soup boiled over on the stove twice, before he poured what was left into a blender.

Martin hit the button and soup went everywhere. As presenters Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield giggled uncontrollably, Martin's segment went from bad to worse, as the director in his earpiece kept telling him he was running out of time. The increasingly annoyed chef tried to keep his cool but Schofield's quip about a sauce tipped him over the edge and into full-on tantrum.

It takes confidence to step in front of the T.V. cameras and considerable cojones to stand in front of Gordon Ramsay, look him square in the eye, and tell him how good your food is. Especially when it's not. That's exactly what happened to line cook Antonia Boregman in Season 8 of "Hell's Kitchen."

In a Men vs Women battle, when she lifted the cloche on her Mardi Gras gumbo, chef Ramsay asked, "Does it normally look like a plate of liquid s***?" Antonia insisted everyone always loved her gumbo, but Ramsay had barely swallowed a spoonful before he threw it up into a trash can. Antonia had to admit she hadn't tasted it before serving it to the (nauseous) world-renowned chef.

Her surname has major Hollywood connections, while the small screen made Giada de Laurentiis a household name, but neither protected the chef from a miffed superstar. In 2017, de Laurentiis hosted a cooking segment on the "Ellen" show, where Oscar-winner Nicole Kidman was a guest. On the menu were arancini rice balls and focaccia bread.

"I'm precise!" Kidman scoffed, after de Laurentiis said she didn't need a timer to cook the rice balls, and the awkward segment went downhill from there. When the star talked about her anxiety when cooking, de Laurentiis quipped, "Don't make so many things," before attention turned to the finished focaccia. "I know you're not mean to criticize but it's a little tough," Kidman said, before spitting it out.

Since its launch in 2001, foodies in the United Kingdom kick off the weekend (and find Sunday dinner inspo) with BBC series "Saturday Kitchen." One of its most popular elements are the live cookery segments, led by a chef who is helped out by that edition's host. In 2017, Irish cook Donal Skehan was in the latter role, as chef Jun Tanaka rustled up some fish for a barbecue.

Mid conversation, Tanaka's face dropped as he asked Skehan whether he'd cut himself. The presenter confirmed he had, telling the audience, "This is live television. Very sharp knives," and later served the dish with his hand wrapped in a cloth. Did someone on social media respond with a clip of Dan Aykroyd's iconic Julia Child skit? They sure did.

The line between creating and chaos can be a very fine one, especially when it comes to food. For an elimination challenge in Season 3 of "MasterChef," contestant Tali Clavijo didn't just overstep that line, he rubbed it out and ran, scattering fruit as he went.

The task was to make a risotto and Clavijo decided to show off his skills by adding pistachio, cherries, gooseberries, and cranberries to the rice. Before he'd presented the plate, Gordon Ramsay and Joe Bastianich both felt Clavijo was out of his depth. They were proved right in the tasting. Bastianich dubbed the risotto "garbage," while Ramsay spat it out. Shockingly, Clavijo survived elimination.

Less than a year after a helicopter almost blew away his beachside kitchen, John Torode hosted another cooking segment for British daytime T.V. show "This Morning" in 2020. This time, he was indoors (thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown) and planned to create a homemade version of the beloved McDonald's McMuffin.

With presenters Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield chaotically cooking along in the studio, Torode guided them through every step. However, the tea towel on the gas stove behind him caught fire and went unnoticed for several minutes. Eventually Schofield pointed it out, the chef threw it in the sink, disaster was averted, and the trio laughed it off. However, the London Fire Brigade used the incident to warn people about the dangers of kitchen fires.

Season 16 of "Chopped" wanted the contestants to go all out in the "Extreme Halloween" episode. New York chef John Creger, who admitted he didn't do "play it safe" food, may have stuck to his guns but went way too far for the judges. Among the ingredients given to the participants was eel, and Ted Allen warned them its blood was poisonous and it was imperative the fish was skinned to be properly cooked.

Eager to present something different, Creger ignored the instruction and served up all-but raw eel, definitely a seafood to be avoided. The judges liked his creativity, and while he insisted "one item shouldn't be his demise," the panel disagreed and chopped Creger from the competition.

Anyone who has ever stood in line, stomach rumbling at an office canteen knows time is of the essence when it comes to getting your meal. When "MasterChef" decides to take over the kitchen, it's not even guaranteed there will be food to choose from. That's what happened in a tense, 2011 edition of the contest.

Episode 6 followed the Red and Blue teams as they were challenged to cook a five-course meal for 350 hungry workers, who would vote for their favorite plate. As the pressure mounted, the pizzas and burgers from the Blue team dwindled, workers took empty plates. Desperate to get back on track, team leader Max Kramer tried to speed up the burgers by precooking them, but his sloppy approach caused disaster.

"It's either a terrible error or the most incredible case of baking espionage," said "The Great British Bake Off" presenter Sue Perkins, as what became known as "Custardgate" unfolded. In 2013, during Season 4, the contestants were challenged to make classic, vintage dessert, the trifle. As foodies know, it has a custard layer, which has to be made in advance so it's got time to cool.

Howard Middleton chose to make his without a cornflour thickener — a tricky task — only for his finished custard to be "accidentally" taken by fellow baker Deborah Manger. She apologized for the mistake, and while not all viewers were convinced, they decided justice was served after Manger was eliminated at the end of the episode.

Audiences demand many things from T.V. cooking shows, but they prize authenticity above all. Former member of the Office of Strategic Services Julia Child had that — plus a dry wit and indomitable spirit — in spades, a combination that came in handy for her long-running series "The French Chef."

A 1971 episode from Season 7 is a great example. While making an apple tarte tatin, she knocked over her equipment, lost her train of thought, and used a rolling pin made from a garage broom handle. "If everything doesn't happen quite the way you'd like, it doesn't make too much difference because you can fix it," Child said confidently, before the sizzling tatin fell apart as she tipped it onto a plate.

Italian-born chef Gino D'Acampo was a regular on British daytime T.V. show "This Morning." Audiences adored the dashing star's food, but he was notorious for language slip-ups, such as his inability to pronounce the word "sheet." One of the worst came in 2010, after he cooked a pasta dish for hosts Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield.

When she suggested adding ham could create a carbonara, an outraged D'Acampo snapped, "If my grandmother had wheels she would have been a bike," little realizing he'd suggested his ancestor had been a bit promiscuous. Willoughby and Schofield were helpless with laughter, but weirdly, former Prime Minister David Cameron repeated the quote when asked about the outcome of the 2024 general election.

For hundreds of home cooks, the "MasterChef" competition offers the chance to turn their passion into a profession. But plenty of capable cooks watch their dishes fall apart before their eyes — so is it braver to present a plate of rubbish to the judges, or nothing at all?

In 2014, Season 3 of "MasterChef Ireland" was just three episodes in when stay-at-home mum Sarah set out to cook a pear and ginger pudding with homemade vanilla ice cream and chopped walnut praline. She struggled with the equipment and timings, and when the judges called her name, she had nothing to present. Unsurprisingly, Sarah was eliminated, but she's not the only "MasterChef Ireland" contestant to offer an empty plate: It also happened in 2019.

Everyone thinks about the contestants in cooking competitions, but spare a thought for the judges. Just ask Antonia Lofaso. Back in 2014, she made her debut as a judge in a Season 3 episode of "Cutthroat Kitchen", and what she ate probably makes her gag to this day.

Among the challenges was a warm cobb salad, and for this one a century egg — one which has been fermented — had to be included. A nervous Lofaso didn't hear the chef explain he'd used the entire thing in the dish. She ate it but, "as soon as I got back to my dressing room I threw up," she admitted, via Business Insider. The experience was so bad, it put her off eating eggs for around a year.

"I hate this bit," quipped T.V. cook Dave Myers, as he prepared to turn out a fruit pudding during a live cooking segment on BBC show "Saturday Kitchen." He tipped the ceramic bowl onto a plate, then rattled and shook it — but the pudding stayed put. His co-star Si King tried, and still it did not move. "Don't smash the plate," Myers warned, as the crew and guests watched on.

After a quick slide round the edge of the bowl with a knife, the strawberry pudding finally plopped onto the plate and collapsed. "Generally it just relaxes, a bit like when my wife takes her Spanx off," Myers ad-libbed, before he decorated the "the perfectly formed mound" with a sprig of mint.

Local morning news programs serve up all sorts of features alongside the headlines, but in 2013, five outlets in Wisconsin and Illinois became the story, thanks to the comedians behind Found Footage Fest. Co-creators Nick Prueher and Joe Pickett called the news shows, offering time with chef Keith Guerke to cook leftover holiday food.

Trouble was, Guerke was not a chef. He wasn't even a real person, just a role played by Mark Proksch. Presenters enthused as he made a mashed potato ice cream cone with gravy, beat boxed as he rapped about using holiday leftovers or soldiering on as the table — complete with equipment and food — fell over in front of them. Comedy gold? Maybe. Totally cringe? Absolutely.

She may be the grande dame of television cooks, but one of the reasons people loved Julia Childs was nothing fazed her. If something went awry in her kitchen, she didn't get flustered or frustrated, she just carried on, making her even more of an icon among generations of home cooks.

It wasn't an approach that evolved over time, Child was the same even in the earliest days of her career as a celebrity chef, and a 1963, Season 1 episode about potatoes proved it. She tries to flip a skillet of frying potatoes, "a rather daring thing to do." Child flicks the pan, only for some of the potato to end up on the stove. "I didn't have the courage to do it the way I should have," she smiled.

Some cooking show contestants soak up the pressure to produce astonishing dishes. Others buckle and serve a mess or even nothing at all. Saray Carrillo, a participant in the 2020 Spanish version of "MasterChef," took an altogether more shocking direction.

When the contestants were asked to cook a whole partridge — it hadn't been plucked, cleaned out or prepared in any way. A revolted Carrillo approached the 20-minute challenge in a novel way: She put the bird on a plate, added a tomato and spring onion garnish, and presented it to the judges. They were furious at her lack of effort and, after a heated lecture, told her to leave. Carillo's response? "Bye bye."