Aussie chef to taste the real SA

Gary Mehigan

Gary Mehigan

Published Sep 17, 2013

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Johannesburg - MasterChef Australia judge Gary Mehigan knows about South Africa’s culinary offerings – though he’s never set foot in the country.

The likable chef has a friend from Joburg who lives in Australia and who has given him the lowdown on what to expect when he comes out for the Johannesburg Good Food and Wine Show at Coca-Cola Dome from September 21 to 24.

Mehigan says he is researching fish found in South African waters.

“I aim to find out more about the common fish found in your waters. What I’ll probably do is take one ingredient and try and show five or six different things you can do with that ingredient with, of course, an Australian touch. I’ll need to find a fish I’m comfortable with.”

He knows South Africans are big meat eaters, who like bunny chow and sosaties, because his friend runs a restaurant and has made typical South African dishes like biltong and chakalaka.

He is also familiar with South African chefs like Luke Dale Roberts. Mehigan has, as he puts it, never got around to coming to South Africa because of his TV and restaurant commitments.

“We film MasterChef Australia for five months a year.”

 

Before MasterChef, Mehigan was teaching Australians to cook through the Lifestyle Channel’s Boy’s Weekend and Good Chef Bad Chef and via a number of cookbooks including Gary Mehigan’s Comfort Food and Your Place Or Mine with fellow MasterChef judge George Calombaris.

Asked what the MasterChef Australia contestants had taught him, he laughed: “What the contestants always do is surprise me with their creativity and I have been in the business almost 30 years, having started at 17. I’m now 46. Every day they have to come up with a different idea and they do.”

He observes that in the world of modern cuisine there are professional rules that are taking over the world, and these involve losing the shackles of what one has learnt in the past. Today the industry, he says, is driven by technique, profit and repetition and that’s why it’s wonderful to be in a position to learn something new.

“We’d give them random ingredients they have to cook with on the spot; they get a creative push and, in the end, give us some amazing food. Most chefs are not in a day-to-day environment where they have to create something different all the time. It’s certainly been a massive learning curve for me.”

Mehigan says he did not know the series would become a global phenomenon. He has twitter followers in Venezuela, Mexico, and Eastern Canada, all over Europe, Malaysia and a large fan base in India.

Though his life has changed, he still runs his restaurants and doesn’t get treated differently by his staff. They still look to him for inspiration. “I have to remind myself that I live on two levels; my TV life and my restaurants.

“I think being part of MasterChef has given me extraordinary privileges, but is has also put me under scrutiny. I have to focus on my service and get everything right and keep the smiles going even though we’re very busy.”

He talks about the pressures of having to ensure that each season of MasterChef Australia stays fresh.

“This year, its fifth season, Australian TV is packed with reality shows such as X Factor and Australia’s Got Talent. People are making a lot about the fact that our ratings have fallen, but what we try to remind them is that early in our season we were doing about 3.2 million and then 4.7 million for one of our finales – the highest rating of all time. It’s difficult when you settle into the core of a normal audience figure of a million people.

“What we try to do is keep at heart the philosophy that we set out to find the best amateur cooks in the country.”

* Tickets for the food and wine show cost R95 for adults, R55 for children. There is a family price of R280 which covers two adults and two children under 16.

For more information, go to www.goodfoodandwineshow.co.za. - Sunday Independent

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