There was a time in my life when my parents despaired of what I would eat. Sausages? Yes. Bread? Yes. Sausage sandwiches? Hell yes. Anything else? Well, it depended on what it was. Some vegetables and Sunday lunch, yes, almost everything else no, apart from pies (meat pies that it is).

This was through no fault of my parents, who both tried to get me to expand my range of food, but apart from getting me onto squid on one holiday to Menorca, they largely failed.

My sister on the other hand would eat anything that was placed in front of her. I’m amazed that my parents didn’t take me back and demand a refund.

The reason I mention all this is that at the moment my wife and I are busy getting into the last week of Masterchef – The Professionals and I’ve realised that I seem to have become a bit of a foodie.

I think some explanation is necessary. Once upon a time, in the dim and distant era of 1990 I noticed a new programme on BBC1 every Sunday evening. On it three people would cook a three-course meal in under two hours, vying for the right to progress through to the Masterchef finals. It wasn’t a bad show and there were times when it was moderately amusing, as you watched someone do hideous damage to a blameless piece of fish.

It did have a number of problems however. Firstly it was presented by a man called Loyd Grossman, a Bostonian who has been over here in the UK since 1975 and who has acquired a sort of strangulated transatlantic accent that has to be heard to be believed. Every time he said “We’ve deliberated, cogitated and digested and…” before announcing the winner I wanted to shoot the television.

The second problem was that all the contestants seemed to live in small English villages in Surrey, where they spent their time flower arranging, bellringing and having tea with the vicar. At one point I was convinced that one of them was actually Miss Marple and that one of the judges would have a fatal infusion of cyanide in a chicken kiev.

The programme dribbled along to 1999 and then Grossman had a hissy fit and left when it was announced that it was moving to a Tuesday night. The 2000 series was presented by TV chef Gary Rhodes, a man whose chirpy cheeriness always irritates me immensely, and then it died a quiet and largely unmourned death.

However, in 2005 it was resurrected. This time it was a bit different – for a start there wasn’t a flower arrangement in sight. Each programme started out with six people, who were then reduced to three after being asked to make a single plate of food out of a random collection of ingredients (and thus providing us with the occasional glimpse of people who must have gotten in by bribery as they couldn’t cook to save their lives)

The three were then sent off to a restaurant, where they slaved in the kitchens and got a rude awakening as to what it’s like in there and then the gibbering remnants were brought back to the studio and told to cook two plates of their own food.

Presiding over this are presenters Greg Wallace, who is a loud food writer from London, and John Torode, an Australian restauranter who gives Wallace a run for his money in the loudness stakes.

They have their own irritating phrase, which gets trotted out at the start of the programme, that “cooking doesn’t get tougher than this!” This annoys me as I’d hate to imagine what it must have been like to cook for Saddam, or for Kim Jong-Il. (“The carrot batons aren’t all the same length!!! Die!” Blam-blam-blam!!)

Every series has been compulsive viewing, especially as it’s shown that there are some very talented chefs out there. In 2008 Kathleen and I were pulling for Emily, whose food had a somewhat mad quality but which looked as if it was highly adventurous – and she was 18 years old.

After Masterchef the Celebrities were inevitably drawn in, so we got to see (and enjoy) the sight of a number of actors/singers/sports stars sweating over whether or not they’d cooked their duck properly and then going into a meltdown over the texture of their ice cream.

And last year a new facet turned up, with Masterchef – The Professionals, in which real chefs competed against each other. Torode steps down from this one, with Wallace being far more restrained in the presence of Michel Roux Jr, who as a member of the Roux family has done a hell of a lot for British cuisine (plus the chefs are trying to win the prize of a place in Roux’s Michelin-starred restaurant). Lines like “It’s tasty but it looks as if it was made by a 7-year old” make it well worth watching.

So here’s a quick list of the things that I have learnt over the past four years, courtesy of Masterchef.

1. Never come on and make something that you’ve never tried at home before. Trust me, it’s never a pretty sight. Never confuse “bold” with “bloody suicidal”. Especially if its pasta.
2. Never argue with the judges. You’re gonna lose.
3. Never blame the equipment. What are you, seven? Plus if you set fire to the kitchen whose fault is that? Oh yes – yours.
4. Beef should very seldom be raw.
5. Chicken should never be raw. Giving the judges food poisoning is not a good thing at all.
6. Chilli must not be heaped over the food, the plate and the judges.
7. There is a curse written in blood over the doors of the Masterchef studios that dooms anyone trying to make a chocolate fondant. Every time Kathleen and I hear the very words these days we flinch and cross ourselves. Almost every single person who has tried to make one has failed miserably. You’d have more luck making a soufflé on the San Andreas fault. No. Don’t do it.
8. Restaurant critics in Britain tend to be round or thin. Few seem to be in between. All use their tongues like a scalpel. Impressing them isn’t easy. Getting them to express indifference or outright revulsion is relatively simple if you aren’t careful.
9. Innovative flavour combinations that occur to you on the spur of the moment don’t work (see 1) as the last thing you want is for the judges to question your sanity. Call me Mr Unadventurous but things like bananas and chorizo do not go together.
10. Loyd Grossman hates the new series. I think that he’s jealous. Boo hoo.