A biography for John Torodehasn’t been written yet.
“Start with the basics: make pancakes, boil an egg, make toast. Get the kids used to getting a bit of toast and understanding it's hot.”
“People think the restaurant industry is hard and takes no prisoners, but so does baking, so does retail and so does bus driving. You can't blame your job.”
“The food I had as a child was not complicated, but by heck it was tasty. My Nanna's cauliflower cheese was awesome, her caramel slice wonderful and I am still searching for a recipe to make her apple tea cake.”
“The most important ingredient of Sunday lunch is the conversation. Without that, it's dead and gone.”
“Vegetarian' is just another word for 'bad hunter.'”
“I'm an Australian - I grew up in Melbourne and Sydney - but as a kid you don't learn much about the Kimberley.”
“I have no qualms with people who want to be vegetarians; it's just foolish. They are missing out on the best things in life: meat, cheese, proper Christmas pudding.”
“Tomatoes and mozzarella work very well together because the milk is rich in summer when the grass is very very green, and makes the best mozzarella in the world, same time as the tomatoes are around and beautiful bushy basil.”
“I always gauge the deliciousness of the food in markets by the number of 'people eating and waiting - the more the better.”
“In our family a whole ham on the bone would be bought three days before Christmas, and then stored in a pillow case and left in the fridge so anyone can take the huge thing out and slice it.”
“I already have my fantasy job. I run a restaurant and film 'MasterChef,' both of which mean I get to cook and eat - and get paid for it.”
“When you grow up in a family where you have lost a parent, everybody joins together to instil the correct values in you, to give you guidance and and show you the moral ways of the world. Most important to my father and grandmother was the idea of treating people as you would like to be treated.”
“Australia is an extraordinary country full of people who eat extraordinary food. There are Greeks, Italians, Vietnamese, Koreans, Chinese, Brits. It's so varied.”
“I don't think a 12-month TV campaign really changes what anyone thinks.”
“In winter I love a pasty.”
“I want people to throw on a hat, head out into the outback and see the real Australia. You can do it how you want - independently in a 4WD, camping under the stars, or being treated like a king in a luxury homestead or on a cruise.”
“How could you live without chips? I could do without bread easily.”
“As an Aussie, my favourite holidays are skiing ones.”
“There are three types of palate. There's the palate that can't taste anything, there's the normal palate, and there's the Super Palate. I don't think I've got a Super Palate, but it's pretty good.”
“I think the 'Great British Bake-Off' is great.”