KEY POINTS:
Hunger for the Wild always begins as a couple of cheery amateurs amble into somewhere in New Zealand, and that somewhere tends to have wonderful scenery. They don't do suburban bland lands. Once there they chat to the locals and explore the area's cuisine, be it seafood, venison, beef, or lamb.
It's all relaxed and easy-going. Think Country Calendar crossed with Heartland and almost any cooking show. Unlike other food shows, ones picking up the baton from Survivor in being viciously competitive, this show keeps a soothing down-home atmosphere rolling. Given TVNZ's lack of local drama and documentaries, the search for a comparison takes us to the drunk and/or dangerous driving ads, minus the mayhem and death at the end.
It touched a chord. Last year's series won the Air New Zealand Screen Awards Best Factual Series for 2007.
While Alister Brown and Steve Logan are from Wellington, no hint of the public servant's cardigans and sharp suits survives. It's all rugby/bush/country pub, down to the tired jeans, comfortable boots, ragged shorts, rough wool jerseys, and getting around in the 1964 EH Holden.
The camera crew has been well briefed. No glorious sunrise, sunset or misty cloud rolling over a twig of native bush is passed by.
Mistakes get made. These are not dwelt upon. Missing is any hint of the uber male borderline-hostile "jokes as ammunition" aggression of Game of Two Halves' Matthew Ridge and Marc Ellis.
For instance, Brown and Logan breezed into a Kawhia fish shop to try a famed local seafood delicacy, to be told "Forget it". The place had run out and they'd have to come back tomorrow. They did and all was well.
In the Marlborough Sounds, searching for scallops, they found the mail ferry had sailed without one of them. No worries. An obliging local sped him after it in his boat.
Towards the end of each show, Brown and Logan take over to whisk up something that always looks superb, basting it with banter, beer, and a relaxed attitude to precise quantities of ingredients.
Their meal looks casually thrown together. It isn't. Serious craft and vast experience are behind it. These two run a smoothly upmarket Wellington restaurant, where palates are tuned and tolerance of the second-rate is low to nil.
This exposes another element to the show, one sitting under all the kicked back bonhomie. While we are encouraged to try this at home, and the recipe turns up on the website with very specific quantities, no one should forget their easy professionalism in a kitchen might take concentration to emulate.
In the end there are far worse ways to kill a half-hour, in dreaming of the Holden, the relaxed freedom, the food and the sunsets, while trying not to jar the idyll with worries over how to fund it.
* Hunger for the Wild, One, tomorrow 7pm.
