NZ On Screen Content Director Irene Gardiner looks back to a kinder, gentler style of television cooking show.
Long before the days of reality television and international formats, our television cooks did pretty much just that - they cooked on television. New Zealand's first celebrity chef was British import Graham Kerr, who hosted a number of TV cooking shows through the 1960s and into the 70s, using the stage name "The Galloping Gourmet." Kerr later went on to make food programmes around the world.
In this episode of The Graham Kerr Show from 1966, Kerr abandons his usual show format to answer queries from his studio audience about food and cooking. Topics include how to stop scrambled eggs drying out (add cream), battering oysters (never) and when to make Christmas cake (at least six months in advance). The show is a fascinating preserve of mid-60s cuisine - from crumbed cutlets and spaghetti bolognese to Kerr's own curious 'Long White Cloud' dessert.
View The Graham Kerr Show - Cooking with Kerr here:
By the late 1970s, Peter Hudson and David Halls were our new favourite flamboyant TV cooks, with a series of shows that lasted for a period of 10 years. Hudson and Halls were as famous for their camp humour and on-screen spats as they were for their recipes. They won TV awards here, before also working internationally. Coming soon after winning 1981 Feltex Entertainer of the Year, this episode shows viewers how to make crepes with cream chicken and vegetable filling. There are microwaves, roasted nuts and dollops of innuendo.
Watch Hudson and Halls here:
Through all the mad humour of the Graham Kerr and Hudson and Halls years, there was also the steadier television presence of much-loved TV cook Alison Holst, who hosted shows of her own and made guest appearances on a range of other programmes. In this 1984 show Alison Holst Cooks, sponsored by the New Zealand Dairy Board, Holst provides a rundown on four easy meals that can be made out of bread and cheese. Holst's calm charisma gently talks us through the ins and outs of mouse traps, cheese rolls, mini pizzas and, of course, cheese toasties.
You can see Alison Holst Cooks here:
Through the late 1980s and into the 1990s, TV food shows took a bit of a backseat for a while, till the late-90s when another flamboyant foodie, Peta Mathias, began her long-running Taste New Zealand series. Unlike Holst, Hudson and Halls, and Kerr, Mathias was on the road rather than in the studio kitchen - meeting the food producers and chefs of Aotearoa. This Christmas special A Taste of Christmas is from 2003 and features festive food, as well as songs and carols.
Watch A Taste of Christmas here:
Taste New Zealand was followed up by Al Brown and Steve Logan's Hunger for the Wild series in 2006. The show took the two Wellington chefs out of their fine-dining restaurant kitchen on a mission to put the local in 'locally sourced' food. In this series one episode it's wild food on a wild river - whitebaiting on the Mokihinui.
