‘He was special’: Maggie Beer on MasterChef, her memories of Jock Zonfrillo – and why she’d never make it on reality TV

Beloved TV cook Maggie Beer has opened up about her friendship with the late MasterChef judge, Jock Zonfrillo, on the newest episode of Stellar’s podcast, Something To Talk About.

Take a dash of best-selling cookbook author, add a pinch of gourmet food producer, combine with appearances on the country’s biggest cooking shows, garnish with plenty of warmth and humour … and the result is Maggie Beer. Speaking to Stellar’s podcast Something To Talk About, the Australian culinary queen reveals the food she can’t stomach, shares fond memories of the late MasterChef judge Jock Zonfrillo and recalls how she found her voice.

On following her instinct to start writing cookbooks and finding her voice: “I left school at 14 because my parents had lost their business and we lost everything. [Going] out to work at 14 was the making of me in lots of ways because it gave me such grit. But I never knew I had a voice because I hadn’t gone on to what I might have if I’d stayed at school. But one day someone from The Advertiser [in Adelaide] who I’m very fond of came to me and said, ‘Look, there’s this Stephanie Alexander in Melbourne and she writes, and here you are in food doing wonderful things. We want you to write a column.’ I resisted at first and then said, ‘OK, I’ll have a go’. Sunday was always the last day of the week of our luncheon service, always so busy. And I’d say to the team, ‘OK, what did we have on the menu today that’s just perfectly in season? I’m going to go and write about it.’ I’d go into the office, sit at the typewriter, close my eyes and just write. And I found I had a voice.”

Maggie Beer, centre, on the set of MasterChef with Andy Allen (far left), the late Jock Zonfrilo, and Melissa Leong. Picture: Ten

On setting up a restaurant and business in South Australia’s Barossa Valley with her husband Colin in the 1970s, and her most enduring memories and lessons from that time: “The most enduring memories are just how hard the work was, but how we were driven and we loved every moment of it. There was a lot of exhaustion and very little income so you had to be so passionate about what you were doing or you would have dropped it. The lesson learnt is … This might sound strange, but the big lesson was that we never … well,

[it was me that] never felt able to really charge what it was worth. I always wanted everyone to have accessibility to anything I was doing. Making pheasant pies and terrines and pickled quails’ eggs and quail was so unique and cost us so much to do, but I wanted everyone to try them.”

Listen to the full interview with Maggie Beer on Stellar’s podcast, Something To Talk About.

On being “the cook” alongside Simon Bryant as “the chef” on the TV show The Cook And The Chef, which aired on the ABC from 2006 to 2009 – and the difference between the two roles: “I guess it’s all in my head because I’ve never been taught to cook. And yet I was driven for more knowledge from the first day I started cooking at the Pheasant Farm [her Barossa Valley property], knowing that it was going to be my world. But any technique I had, I’d learnt out of a book and I’d never experienced the discipline of a kitchen. I’m chaotic. I cook only by instinct. Whereas Simon is a chef in the best way. He has an ability to explain science as to why things happen. I only feel and therefore can’t teach as well as Simon.”

On the food she will not eat: “There’s only one. And it’s chilli. Can you imagine the limitation? It’s not that I will not eat it; it’s just that it chokes me when it is in any heat. I love that flavour of cooking the chilli in oil, then throwing the chilli away so you have that underpinning of flavour but no heat. [But] chilli itself … can’t do it. There have been times [during appearances on Network 10’s] MasterChef Australia when it has been a limiting factor. Yet I’d have thought most of the contestants would know when I’m there that I can’t tolerate it. Once Simon Bryant on The Cook And The Chef nearly killed me with it.”

On what she can tell us about her guest appearance on MasterChef Australia this season, and why she could never be a contestant herself: “I’m allowed to say that it was, as ever, particularly special. I mean, the reception these young people give me – and I say young because I’m 78 so everyone’s young – they’re wanting so much knowledge all the time and I can’t imagine how they feel when they’ve got a challenge that’s really out of their comfort zone. And I think I might have given them one. It was an ingredient gamble, I can

tell you that. I was amazed at the dishes they put out. The first time I ever was on MasterChef, I was pitted against one of the contestants. I had never seen it because we don’t have commercial television; we live in the country. And all my friends said, ‘Oh, it’s a breeze. Go on, you’ll have fun.’ And here I was pitted against this young person. And it’s a dish I could have made with my hands tied behind my back. But the nerves of [being on the clock made it] so intense; I was almost frozen until the young man dropped his pastry. I went over to help him because that was my instinct. And I was slapped on the wrist. [Laughs]. But it’s the clock. And that even though I’m not competitive, I felt I had to win.”

On working with late MasterChef Australia judge Jock Zonfrillo: “I adore Jock. His energy. His passion for food, his ability to explain and teach. I knew Jock before he was on MasterChef. I knew what a great chef he was. His ideas, his knowledge of indigenous ingredients and his paying homage to them in what he cooked and his love of it all. One of our chefs was his apprentice many, many years ago. So I know that knowledge went deep and I just … He was warm. He was special.”

On leaving the Foxtel baking series The Great Australian Bake Off last year after being the show’s judge alongside Matt Moran since 2015, and how it feels to be making a guest appearance this season: “I retreated from being a significant part of Bake Off because it was too arduous for me. It was away from home for six weeks. Going in to do the cameo, I felt guilty that I didn’t have to work so hard as everyone else. It was a delight, but it was very different.”

On the Maggie Beer Foundation, which trains cooks and chefs who work in aged-care homes across the country: “The foundation is why I’m so incredibly busy. But it’s the most exciting thing because it’s all about timing. I’ve been doing this for nine years already. I’ve

done masterclasses all around Australia over those nine years, bringing cooks

and chefs together to spend time really sharing ideas and knowledge and respect. But now the Federal Government has given my foundation $5 million dollars over three years for training. I will train the chefs that go into the homes and work with the team of the cooks and the chefs, kitchen hands and the carers. That’s how we have to change a culture. The joy of food is as important as the nutrition of food. We need equal measures of both, and everyone should have that right.”

Listen to the full interview with Maggie Beer on Stellar’s podcast, Something To Talk About, below or wherever you get your podcasts.

See Maggie Beer on MasterChef Australia at 7.30pm on June 18 on Network 10.

Originally published as ‘He was special’: Maggie Beer on MasterChef, her memories of Jock Zonfrillo – and why she’d never make it on reality TV