In your new series for Good Food - John Torode’s Australia - you’re touring your homeland. How lovely! Yes but the point of the whole series is that it’s not just about me – it’s about what shaped me. And to find that out you’ve got to meet my family and my friends, and the people I grew up with.
You’ve lived in the UK for over 20 years, what do you miss most about Oz? The main thing I miss is sand, blue sky and salt water warm enough to swim in. We’ve got salt water here but it’s not the kind you’d want to take a dip in - you hurt your feet on all the pebbles before you get to the actual water!
What about when you’re over there, what do you pine for in Blighty? Tea. I love my tea. Nobody can make a cup of tea in Australia so what I do now is I ask for an electric kettle wherever I stay and if they don’t have one I’ll go to the shop and buy one. I take my own Twinings tea bags with me.
What do you like to cook at home? It depends on what I see, but I’ll cook anything. Sitting in the fridge at the moment is leftover pea and ham soup, a piece of Chinese belly pork, chocolate pots and some roast chicken and potatoes left overs. There’s always food around.
What would you cook if you were going to impress a lady? There’s only one way to woo a woman through food, and that’s to make a reservation! Why the bloody hell would you want to stink of food and be all sweaty during the date? That ain’t going to impress anyone. If the night goes really well, make them breakfast instead.
Do you still enjoy doing MasterChef? I love it. When you get someone who understands a curry and gives you something that ferociously hot, but beautifully sweet, extraordinarily salty but amazingly pungent with herbs and nutty rice - that’s when I get excited because that’s when I know someone has got it. There are some great people in the new series we’ve got coming up.
Do you ever think, ‘sod it’, and just eat beans on toast? No, never. I would never open a can of baked beans and put them on toast. I’ve always hated baked beans! If I’m really bad I’ll have a fish finger sandwich.
John Torode’s Australia, weekdays from Monday 3 March, 8pm, Good Food