John Torode Quotes

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.

My earliest memory of cooking is my grandmother showing me how to make chicken gravy on the big combustion stove in her kitchen. I still use Nana’s gravy recipe.

Cooking is what I do professionally and it is my way of life, but it is also the way I relax. It is the thing I dream about the most; it makes me smile.

I’m definitely not a nerd, not a nerd at all.

My second marriage to Jessica just fell apart. It was nothing to do with restaurants.

The inspiration to cook came from my grandmother and my father who were both wonderful home cooks. But I would say I taught myself. You travel, you discover the world, you explore books – it is these things that make a great cook.

I’m an Australian – I grew up in Melbourne and Sydney – but as a kid you don’t learn much about the Kimberley.

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.

Sydney has the world’s best swimming pool. Walk through the Botanical Gardens and you come to the Andrew ‘Boy’ Charlton Pool on Mrs Macquaries Road, with incredible views of Finger Wharf and the Harbour.

As an Aussie, my favourite holidays are skiing ones.

People sometimes forget that Sydney is a harbour and it’s the ferries that make it unique.

I’m pretty conscious of what I eat because of my age.

On Christmas morning breakfast is always thick slices of ham, thick white toast, butter and pepper – oh and a glass of fizz!

As I’d travelled, I’d seen more and more people drinking rose. Given the amount of grapes we grow in Australia, I just said, ‘Why wouldn’t we be making rose?’

Raft Point is among the greatest examples of ancient indigenous art we know of.

I love Moroccan food, but I don’t want to eat a goat or sheep‘s head, thanks.

I like to reactivate my body after a long journey by getting the sun in my eyes.

I’m not someone who jumps in a car to make for the country, I’m an urbanite. I love living in London and there’s always something going on.

The most important aspect of a home is that it’s a retreat, a place where you can laugh and cry.

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.

The weekend is all about teaching the children life skills and getting them out in all weathers.

My kind of cooking is not a single style – French, Asian, Australasian or British – it’s not modern, old-fashioned or classic; it’s a mix of all these things. And at its core is a boy who loved to cook with his Nanna.

Sunday morning is time to slob around and perhaps go swimming.

Restaurant kitchens are highly pressurised environments, with lots of young men, and that means one thing: testosterone. It’s not brutal – it’s military. It is regimented, tough. People are put into compartments and have to do exactly what they’re told or the whole thing falls apart.

Beaches are really important to me, and I love Sennen Cove and Perranporth Beach.

Few people think about the Top End of Australia as a travel destination.

Sydney-siders don’t drive.

I absolutely love jumping on a plane. I find it to be one of the most wonderful, releasing experiences in the world. Nobody can call me and I have my own space where I can do whatever I want. For some people a long-haul flight is an ordeal, but I love every bit of it.

There’s nothing worse than a sterile house.

I can’t understand why anyone would want to reduce vinegar.

It’s hard to get your head around the scale of Australia.

You can’t blame another person for your world being different – or things like divorce. It gets right on my goat when people don’t take responsibility.

My food hero would be someone like Elizabeth David, because I think what she did for Britain was amazing. Also David Thompson, an Australian chef who does Thai food and really understands the basis of it, has always been very inspiring.

MasterChef’s’ about real people and for real people. It’s aspirational and inspirational. There’s nothing snobbish about it.

Men and women are not the same in the kitchen. Women tend to be uninhibited and instinctive. Men are inconsistent, egotistical show-offs.

There is no way in the world that a vacuum cleaner will ever be obsolete – they use them for swimming pools, they use them for houses, they use them for industrial purposes. They’re fantastic things.

Cutting out meat or fish I could maybe just about manage – living without either? I can’t see myself doing that ever, ever, ever.

Under-mature beef with no fat through the meat will be a dry and tasteless disappointment and you will get little yield from it.

I do think about how different my life might have been had my mother not died so young, but I try not to delve into it too deeply, as it’s like ‘Sliding Doors,’ isn’t it? You just don’t know.

Those who know me well will tell you that I love a market, and when I say market, I mean food market. No matter where in the world, they allow me to soak up the culture, to hear the rhythmic chattering of the local people and traders, and take in the all-important smells, pungent and intoxicating.

Marriage is a very difficult thing and sometimes everyone can be a bit stubborn; it is what it is.

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.

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.

Growing up in Australia, we didn’t really go on holiday. We lived beside the beach, so when I walked out of the back gate I was on the sand.

Street stalls, be they in Korea, Thailand or anywhere else in Asia, in a covered market or simply on a street corner with a few brightly coloured plastic stools and tables, are my favourite places in the world to eat.

I like all my jackets to be on wooden coat hangers, all facing the same direction.

I don’t like to eat in front of people.

Vegetarian’ is just another word for ‘bad hunter.’

I got quite into Spam once, in Korea. On their Thanksgiving, they give boxes of it to their friends. I fry it in batter with herbs wrapped around.

Fish and chips by nature are greasy, so we put vinegar on it and we like it because it helps our digestive system. The vinegar breaks down the fat.

Sunday lunch should be about sociability, about conversation, about general stimulation and the education of the youth.

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.

I cooked, which was pretty un-Australian. And I didn’t really like Australian music… I preferred the New Romantics and punk and stuff like that.

My father did lots of things. He had an orange-juice factory. He did real estate. He did commercial selling. He was always up and about doing all sorts of weird and wonderful things and being adventurous. I always admired his self-discipline. He was very good at getting everything done. He was very tidy.

In winter I love a pasty.

When I’m on holiday I want to clear my head and I found Marrakech too ‘in your face‘ and busy.

I think a robot butler would be a great idea for certain things. But the idea of anybody coming into my bedroom and doing stuff for me, besides my wife and I – such as giving you tea in the morning – I just find a bit irksome.

I don’t worry about the camera adding pounds, I am who I am.

How could you live without chips? I could do without bread easily.

Markets have long been at the centre of communities, not just somewhere to drop in and grab a bag of groceries, but a hub, a meeting place, and always a place to stop and eat.

I grew up in a world with my father where you learnt to iron, you learnt to cook, you learnt how to clean the toilet… I want my children to be the same… I want them to be anywhere in the world and be able to cope.

For the children it will always be a lemonade float at the Christmas table as a special treat.

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.

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.

My affinity for beef extends into my home life, so you’ll notice canvas prints of cows, a cowhide rug and prints of Smithfield meat market.

My worst flight was with the Indonesian carrier Garuda from Australia to Bali, which was just awful.

I think that most things, if you want to use them properly, take quite a lot of time and I don’t necessarily have the patience to sit down and read the instructions and follow the first bits to actually get the starting point.

You have to control your own destiny and make your own choices.

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.

I don’t think a 12-month TV campaign really changes what anyone thinks.