Matty Matheson has experienced his first hangi - and he loved it.
Matty Matheson wasn't expecting much from his first taste of traditional Kiwi tucker.
Sitting around a hangi pit with Kiwi chef Morgan McGlone waiting for his meat and veges to cook, Matheson says he expected everything to be overcooked and flavourless.
"I thought everything was just going to be mush," says the celebrity chef and star of Viced food show Dead Set on Life.
But the Canadian bad boy of food television couldn't have been further from the truth.
Matheson - known for his impressive takes on gutsticking comfort food - got in touch with McGlone to help him film the first episode of his show's third season in Hastings.
He told him: "I wanna make a whole episode around you being Maori."
McGlone showed him two different styles of hangi, cooking Matheson "kumara, corn, potato, eggs, prawn, venison sausage and mussels" in the ground, and the same ingredients in wicker baskets lowered into geothermal pools.
Matheson wasn't prepared for just how good a hangi could be.
"I had no idea really and everything came out so perfectly. One was smoky, one wasn't but they were both cooked perfectly. Both techniques [were] phenomenal."
His New Zealand experience opens the third season of Matheson's show, which debuts here this weekend. This time around, there are some changes: Dead Set on Life is focusing on the people Matheson meets rather than the food they cook.
"Everyone has a story. You gotta dig a little deeper and we still want food, we still really want that kind of stuff," he says. "I always say that food is the foundation. It may not always be the biggest part of the show but it'll always be the centre of the show."
Matheson, a party-hard chef who got sober after suffering a heart attack at 29, admits he's been making it up as he goes along.
"I've never done television, never wanted to do television [so] we're doing it in a very organic way. Our producers are not mainstream producers, they're guys that I've been friends with for years. We're all learning."
Food wasn't the only thing Matheson experienced while in New Zealand. He also added to his impressive collection of tattoos - a piece influenced by his time with McGlone.
"I got different kinds of waves to show strength and prosperity and I got my wife, my son and my mum, my dad, my sister, my two brothers, my two nephews, and my close-knit family," he says.
"I got some connective stuff with Morgan in there ... It's a cool piece."
LOWDOWN
Who: Matty Matheson
What: Dead Set on Life
Where and when: Third season begins screening on Sky's Viceland channel, from Saturday, 8.30pm
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