Tasting Australia brings Maggie Beer and Emma McCaskill together in the Glasshouse Kitchen

Emma McCaskill has gone from wagging school and watching The Cook and The Chef to becoming its co-star alongside Maggie Beer.

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One is an Australian food legend; the other, one of Adelaide’s hottest chefs.

Now Maggie Beer and Emma McCaskill are joining for one night only as part of Tasting Australia.

There are 50 days to go until Australia’s longest running food and drinks festival hits the state, and on Saturday food lovers can grab the printed program exclusively in The Advertiser.

A highlight will be dinner at the famed Glasshouse Kitchen in Victoria Square.

Emma, chef at Sparkke at the Whitmore, will join her career idols. She will cook with Sat Bains, from Michelin-starred restaurant Sat Bains in the UK, Darren Robertson of Byron Bay’s Three Blue Ducks, and Maggie.

Cooking at a Glasshouse will be a first for Maggie, who has been involved in the festival since its inception in 1997.

“I’ve done many other things – but not that!” says Maggie, adding that she “so loves Emma McCaskill’s food. We’ve tossed some ideas around – we’ve got to see how it all comes together.”

Emma says Maggie was one of the reasons she started cooking in the first place.

“I was really naughty at school … I used to wag and go home with friends and watch The Cook and the Chef sometimes,” she says. The Cook and the Chef was, of course, the show that brought Maggie to TV stardom alongside Simon Bryant – now Tasting Australia’s festival director.

“I decided to leave school early and get into cooking,” she says. “I think even now, what she has done for Adelaide is incredible. And to be in her company and feel her excitement for food is really inspiring.”

Emma, 33, worked with Darren at Tetsuya’s in Sydney, and was the research and development chef for Sat in the UK when she was just 24 years old.

“I’m really excited to get these guys together cooking,” she says. “I have a feeling I might be emotional, but I’ll try not to be!”

Tasting Australia runs from March 27 – April 5.