I’m there to make people eat something and go ‘Yum!’
View(s):By Kaveesha Fernando
George Calombaris, shared his views on food, culture and philosophy of life at a news conference and interview. Excerpts:
Favourite South Asian spice?
Cinnamon.
Why he fell in love with food?
There’s no question about it – you’re a product of your youth and you’re a product of how you’ve been brought up and your beliefs and the interests, for me, food has been the centre of my life forever. It’s now dawned on me after 20 years in the industry, people just wanted to become a chef, it was just what you would do if you fell in love with food.
Food is an integral, wonderful way for me to express my creativity and artistic idea in an emotional way and food is something that I absolutely love and adore.
What professional chefs can learn from home cooks
There’s a lot of young chefs that are doing it out there because it’s a job. You would never be successful if it’s a job. It’s not a job for me, I don’t go to work, I wake up everyday and I live my life and it’s incredibly wonderful and amazing and has its testing times, you can’t fly close to the Sun, sometimes you’re going to get burned.
It’s about how resilient you can be and if you get through that and if there’s anything that homecooks can teach professionals, it’s that this incredible love and desire for flavour.
Sometimes chefs can get caught up in a concept, where concepts override flavour, but really, what are we doing it for? We’re in the business of flavour – I’m there to make people eat something and go ‘Yum!’ and if I can give them the concept as well and take them to a place, transport them somewhere, that’s fantastic, that’s an added bonus. Doing both is hard.
What home cooks can learn from professional chefs
Don’t go and become a professional if you don’t understand that being a chef is about reputation and hard work and long hours, and that can sometimes chew up your love for food.
A lot of home cooks who love food, their friends tell them they’re amazing, they make the best jalebi, you must go and open up a jalebi store.
They go and do it, and after week they’re tired, after week two they’re exhausted and after week three they’re not making money and essentially going broke and by week four, they hate life. So sometimes, turning into a professional can really turn your idea of food. Everyone every single day comes into my restaurant and are critiquing.
The value of authentic food
My religion is whole food and real food. My kids know what is real food and what is whole food and good food and they know what is everyday food and sometimes food, and sometimes food is burgers – we go to our local burger shop, but that’s sometimes food.Everyday food is vegetables in season, fruit and good proteins and all that type of stuff.
How he has kept MasterChef going (with the help of Gary and Matt)
“I think it’s lots of little things done well. The three of us have control over the show and it’s not producer driven, it’s Gary, George and Matt driven. We pick the contestants we want, we pick them based on their dreams and desires followed by their cooking abilities, not based on characters like a lot of reality shows do. It’s Australian, so it represents everyone in the world and it’s authentic.
It’s a real show based on integrity and belief. If MasterChef had a voice I’m sure it would say things like authentic and real – there to change people, there to nurture, protect and care for.
On what goes on behind the scenes
What you see is what you get. An episode can take 10-12 hours and 9 cameras, that’s a lot of footage.
There’s so much you don’t see, how much hard work goes into the show and there’s over 250 staff that work on making MasterChef and we have a lot of fun doing it.