At only 20 years old, Bridget Mangwandi is the youngest, and the first, black woman to win the South African MasterChef competition. Let's find out what this 1 million rand woman is all about!
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00:00How did this young culinary star win over hearts and big bucks with a dish
00:04inspired by her mother, becoming South Africa's first black female MasterChef winner?
00:10One person to win the cash prize of 1 million rand and the title of
00:18MasterChef South Africa Season 5. And that person is...
00:25Meet 20-year-old Bridget Mwangwandi, who is 1 million rands or about 50,000 euros richer,
00:33after cooking her heart out on television and winning one of South Africa's most popular
00:37cooking competitions. The interest in food and cooking came from me, well first of all,
00:49starting to wanting to help at home. My mom working a lot and me having to put things together,
00:56making food after school and then from that I was taking a lot of my lunch boxes to school and
01:00everybody knew I had the best lunch. From watching kids cooking shows and experimenting with recipes
01:05in the kitchen, to wanting to help her single mom who was working two jobs at the time,
01:09she began cooking meals for herself and her sister. I remember I actually have it on my
01:15Facebook page, this picture she did that she made a quiche, but it was just a simple quiche,
01:21I mean spinach quiche, nothing fancy, but she made the pastry from scratch. How, which, what,
01:29I don't know, but it was really flaky, very nice and I was so proud. I remember like proud mom moments
01:35and little did I know that this would actually grow to be something bigger as we see it today.
01:42Before we get to the recipe that led to Bridget becoming the youngest contestant and first black
01:46woman to win MasterChef South Africa, let's explore how she came to compete for one of
01:51reality television's most coveted titles in the first place.
01:56When it comes to food, it's definitely come across in so many areas of my life. I mean I study it,
02:01I decided to enter MasterChef, before that I was catering and it's just been something I've really
02:06enjoyed and had a passion for. I just started growing more in that, cooking more and experimenting
02:12a lot more and that experimenting actually led me to food science, which is what I decided I
02:16wanted to study around grade 10, started doing my catering around grade 11, 12 and went to varsity
02:22two years later. So upon entering MasterChef, that was also just me trying to challenge myself and
02:26see what I can do outside of the already food-related ventures or opportunities I already do.
02:36For me, top five was literally like, okay we've won. And for her to literally be the MasterChef,
02:42I'm actually getting goosebumps. There's no words that I can use to describe it.
02:51As her biggest supporter, Bridget's mother inspired the winning recipe.
02:55But what else helped her win this popular international show for amateur cooks?
03:00Having studied consumer sciences in food and nutrition, it was definitely something that
03:04was a strength of mine because I knew that with consumer science, you get recipes that
03:09demonstrate how food science works. So it's not exactly cooking, but you're demonstrating how
03:13certain processes work. So knowing those processes helped me know what things go well together,
03:18especially when you had a mystery box and had ingredients that were probably unrelated with
03:23each other. And there was even a food science episode where I got to demonstrate a lot of
03:26the gastronomy that I already knew and experimented at home and at school with.
03:31A champion's journey is never without its challenges.
03:34What difficulties did she have to overcome in the kitchen?
03:39I was chopping mushrooms and I partially severed my thumb and then I had to go to
03:44have it stitched together and all of that. So that was a bit nasty. And then the next morning,
03:49the next challenge was, so it had to happen and you have to pick yourself up from it. Did I cry?
03:54Yes, after in my privacy. But it was definitely a key moment of the MasterChef challenge that I was
04:01like, OK, this is now getting intense. I need to be ready no matter what, because the next challenge,
04:05then I was at the bottom and that was even more tough. That is where I really felt it.
04:09But as I said before, you have to pick yourself up and push forward.
04:14Bridget's winning dish was a delicious apricot king-clipped fish.
04:18My final winning dish was an apricot king-clipped derived from an apricot chicken, which I learned
04:23from my mum. And that's something that was sentimental, especially after being on
04:27set for so long and going through all these rigorous challenges. I wanted it to be very
04:30sentimental and meaningful to me. At least I tried, you know. So that's definitely what I
04:35had in mind. And I had always kept that recipe for the last moment where I could possibly use it.
04:40So I'm glad I got to even use that recipe because it's from a humble dish. But elevating it was
04:46definitely the goal and the key part of making it a success in MasterChef.
04:51And what does the future hold for Bridget? Well,
04:54she would love to work in food product development and dreams of having her own cooking show.
05:01Winning a million rand was amazing. I'm really happy I got to win it.
05:05And I'm glad that I've got something to show for this entire competition.
05:09And apart from the million rand, I know there's a lot more
05:11opportunities and adventures I'm going to take, especially
05:14travelling-wise, culinary-wise. There's so much I want to do in terms of that.
05:19Bridget may have had a natural talent for cooking, but it's her hard work that carried
05:23her to the top. At just 20 years old, she's proven that even in the face of fierce competition,
05:29dreams are attainable with passion and perseverance.