Nomad Chef, hosted by Jock Zonfrillo, takes one on a unique journey of world’ ancient cuisine every Saturday and Sunday at 7 pm. He tells SHAlINI SAKSENA that through the show, he learnt many native ingredients and traditional techniques of cooking that he has recreated in his restaurant
If you want to know how one can amalgamate cooking and adventure, then Nomad Chef on TlC will not only take you on a journey that talks about ancient recipes of the natives across the globe, it will take one on a culinary adventure as well.
Chef Jock Zonfrillo who embarks on this travelogue says that going on this journey had its share of challenges. “There were challenges on every step. First deciding the places, then going in and building the trust with the natives so they can let us all in and lastly perfecting the technique,” Zonfrillo says
The idea was to make a programme that will be interesting for viewers with plenty of remote element added to it. The team wanted to show strong survival culture but it had to be food related. So when chef Zonfrillo, who had avoided doing television for 26 years, got the call and was told that the show is based on the a philosophy that he believed in, it was hard for him to say ‘no’.
The most interesting aspect of native food, he tells you is when ventures into a community with the aim to try and find out what they’re eating, why they’re eating it, how they’re eating it and is it delicious or not. “So in that sense every community that I visited had an interesting story to tell through their own technique and way of preparations,” Zonfrillo says adding that the most most amazing/fascinating recipe or food habits that he came across was when he was in Ethiopia.
“I got to know they eat raw cow’s stomach and that is the traditional thing to eat on Christmas Day. Also, they use a spice mix called Berbere. This has become a favourite over his staff meals at my restaurant, Orana,” Zonfrillo says.
The half Scottish and half Italian chef tells you that coming from a family of farmers only brought him closer to his passion — food. “I grew up with rich food memories and traditions. I have always believed food has a healing powers and this is the very core of my food philosophy. When I first came to Australia I found a lot of great restaurants. But none had a use of native ingredients. I believe it is important to go back to our roots and bring ingredients to our contemporary life. Today at the restaurant, we’re trying to discover Australian cuisine and what exactly is the cuisine all about.
My belief is that the foundation of an Australian cuisine should be the first Australians, so aboriginal Australians. But it should also be inclusive of recent settlement, which was 230-odd years ago and that settlement brought a lot of different cultures with it, a lot of Europeans and obviously different foods. So that’s what interests me,” Zonfrillo says.
But to do that and get to know the real native recipes, one has to build trust with them before they start showing you things, he says. “They gave me some simple basic tasks first and gradually showed me their food and their recipes,” Zonfrillo recounts.
Some of which one will get to see in the show when Zonfrillo goes back to his restaurant and recreates the dishes that he has learnt. “I bring in the cultural techniques and traditional foods, recipes, and then I bring that knowledge back to the restaurant,” Zonfrillo explains.