Food Safari

Moroccan food is one of the most cleverly balanced cuisines on earth – spices are used to enhance the flavour of dishes & there is nothing like the warm waft of beautiful spices that seduce you when you open the lid of a tajine. The essence of Moroccan food is a communal style of eating, with many dishes shared by the family. The meal time is very social & eaten at a leisurely pace with much laughter & talking.When entering a Moroccan home, you would be offered food & usually tea within a heartbeat. Hospitality is a very important part of Moroccan culture & making guests welcome is also part of the Islamic teaching.

Malaysian food is heavily influenced by the food of other countries including Chinese, & Indian as well as the native Malay or Peranakan style of cooking. These influences extend from the use of the wok as the main cooking pan, to a combination of a number of spices in many of the dishes. Malaysian food uses an amazing blend of flavours aimed at making your 'tastebuds jump up & down' & the thing that raises it to an art form is the combination of textures, tastes & colour. & nothing is more colourful than the cleverly layered riceflour & coconut sweets called Kueh.

Food Safari plunges into the fiery passionate world of Portuguese food where all the best food has a close relationship with fire, starting with the now famous Portuguese charcoal chicken. Food author and explorer Maeve O'Meara prizes a recipe for the famous marinated flattened chicken with peri peri sauce from her friend Luis Fernandes whose family brought the recipe from Angola to the world.

Japanese food is refined and elegant, its preparation and presentation honed over the centuries so its flavours are pure and delicate. Like many of the most highly developed cuisines on earth, Japanese food celebrates and highlights the flavours, textures and colours of seasonal produce. The first produce of the season is prized. As well as exquisite flavour, visual beauty is paramount; the type of plate or dish is as important as what is on it. The Japanese have also perfected the concept of negative space; where the empty parts of a serving platter serve to emphasise the beauty of the food placed on i

The French have elevated food into an art form... nowhere else on earth is so much attention paid to what people are going to eat and how they eat it. The reason is steeped in history - the fostering of the royal court, the subsequent revolution, the discipline of the apprentice system, the quality of ingredients and creativity of the chefs, and simply, the love of good food. The focus on food has elevated French chefs to almost godlike status and one of the symbols is the coveted Michelin star system that rates chefs and restaurants. Published since 1900, it awards stars to a very small number of European restaurants of outstanding quality

The French have elevated food into an art form... nowhere else on earth is so much attention paid to what people are going to eat and how they eat it. The reason is steeped in history - the fostering of the royal court, the subsequent revolution, the discipline of the apprentice system, the quality of ingredients and creativity of the chefs, and simply, the love of good food. The focus on food has elevated French chefs to almost godlike status and one of the symbols is the coveted Michelin star system that rates chefs and restaurants. Published since 1900, it awards stars to a very small number of European restaurants of outstanding quality

From the tango dancing couple who show us how to create the perfect Argentinian asado to the empanada queen and her recipe; from Chilean all purpose salsa to simple Peruvian ceviche (lime marinated fresh fish), plus the secret to making luscious caramel, this is a beautiful colourful episode and a great start to the series.

In this episode we learn how to make true dukkah (the aromatic mix of spices, nuts and seeds) from two experts, discover how easy it is to make a feast from okra and lamb, and see the ancient and treasured national dish called molokhia come together. A belly dancing expert teaches us to make ful medames and we learn to make the Aussie version of Nile perch cooked in clay – barramundi cooked in a tagine (Egypt’s version of the Moroccan tajine). Look out for the easy recipe for the wicked sweet called basbousa.

What fun we had meeting German expatriates and filming some of their treasured dishes – pork knuckle cooked with caraway seeds, a hearty comforting lentil soup, incredibly flavoursome marinated beef in red wine and spices, a quick clever cabbage recipe plus an absolutely showstopping wonder of a Black Forest cake – this will be the one you’ll beg to be made for your birthday!

Italian Food Safari opens with a celebration of the wood-fired oven, which many Italians constructed in their backyards when they arrived in Australia. Maeve visits the inspiring Ricupero family who settled in Jarrahdale outside Perth where they grow vegetables on a large scale and bake 140 loaves of bread every 2 weeks in the huge oven they built themselves – the crunchy on the outside, soft on the inside pane di casa so adored by Italians. Guy then shows a recipe for delicious bruschetta, using day-old bread. Guy joins olive oil producer Joe Grilli from Primo Estate in McLaren Vale at harvest time and learns about mixing oils for the perfect blend. Vongole harvester Tony Petruzzelli takes us to work as he rakes waist-deep in water off Adelaide’s Outer Harbour then Sydney chef Eugenio Maiale cooks up the classic spaghetti alla vongole, the one dish that he always keeps on his menu at his popular inner city restaurant A Tavola. For sweets, the crunchy fried biscuit cannoli filled with fresh ricotta is close to heaven, especially when its made by second generation Sicilian sweets master Achille Mellini from Grossi Florentino. .

Italian Food Safari goes to Fremantle to join the last sardine fisherman on the Western Australia coast, the charming Jim Mendolia who supplies the fresh fish market. Melbourne cook Rosa Mitchell from the Journal Canteen, better known as Rosa’s Kitchen, shows Guy the secrets of her delicious classic recipe for stuffed sardines. Italian cuisine wouldn’t exist without pasta and Maeve visits the Baldino family at L’Abruzzese Pasta in Adelaide to learn how all the various shapes of extruded pasta are made including the “little ears” or orecchiette which Guy cooks in his restaurant kitchen with cime di rapa, a favourite dish from Puglia, where Guy’s family is from. He then ventures into the Victorian Alpine country to visit Simone’s, a beautiful country restaurant run by Umbrian chef Patrizia Simone who shares her recipe for roast duck stuffed with local chestnuts, the centre-piece of an al fresco feast set out by a mountain stream.

Italian Food Safari focuses on the glorious tomato, with presenter Guy Grossi joining tomato grower John Monigatti on Echuca’s black soil plains during harvest. Maeve then shares tomato day with a large Calabrese clan – the Cipri family in suburban Sydney who have made fresh tomato sauce every year since the patriarch Severio arrived in Australia 45 years ago. The woman who introduced much of South Australia to Italian food, cooking teacher Rosa Matto, makes a marvelous eggplant parmigiana. Sardinian chefs Giovanni Pilu from Sydney’s Pilu at Freshwater who’s from the north of Sardinia and Pietro Porcu from Melbourne’s Da Noi and The Tea Rooms at Yarck and who’s from the south, get together to show presenter Guy Grossi beautiful rustic dishes from their respective regions. Melbourne chef Graziella Alessi shows how to make the luscious all-time favourite dessert - tiramisu.

French Food Safari opens with a tour of the world’s largest wholesale produce market, Rungis, on the outskirts of Paris. It’s as big as a suburb and sells every food you can imagine, from Icelandic sea urchins to French forest mushrooms. It’s a food lover’s dream, and Guillaume and Maeve are in heaven, tasting as they go.

French Food Safari journeys under the ground in Paris to the secret bakery of one of the great Parisian bakers – the rock star of bread Jean-Luc Poujaran, who supplies all the top restaurants in the city. A perfect loaf of his naturally leavened bread takes three days to prove and the results are golden crusted and fragrant.

In this episode, we explore the delicious, relaxed, inexpensive style of eating at the bistro – a tradition that's been popular for hundreds of years. We spend time in the kitchen of St Germain chef Yves Camdeborde, who trained in the top restaurants but believed he would have more fun in a bistro. The diners love it, too – his bistro Le Comptoir is now booked six months in advance.

SBSs highly acclaimed and hugely popular food series, Food Safari, returns with an enticing mix of some of the latest cuisines to be making their impact in Australia. With flavours and recipes from around the world that have now become a part of Australia's culinary landscape, this new series begins by exploring the many cuisines of Darwin, including recipes from the city's large Greek population, the numerous Asian fares represented in the area as well as classics from local Indigenous cooks. Maeve OMeara and the team then travel the country meeting chefs and home cooks. These rising stars of the new Australian food scene feature in episodes highlighting the cuisines of Peru, Cyprus, the Philippines, South Africa, Laos, Poland, Afghanistan, Denmark and finishing with the unique creole food scene of Broome.

In the second episode of Food Safari, Maeve O'Meara explores the country considered the gourmet destination of South America - Peru - and its infiltration into Australian culture. Maeve meets Alejandro Saravia from Morena restaurant in Surry Hills, who shows her some of the key ingredients in Peruvian cuisine including chillies, corn, potato and the high protein grain of the Andes - quinoa. Maeve then joins a group of Peruvian women making humitas, known as the 'bread of the Incas'. Chef Jorge Chacon shows how to make the world's best chips using cassava, which cooks up to a very crunchy outside and smooth creamy inside, served with a mellow chilli-based huancaina sauce, while Luis Almenara shows how to make the famous cocktail of Peru - the pisco sour - using plenty of freshly squeezed lime juice and finishing with a touch of Angostura bitters.

Maeve O'Meara explores some of the simple dishes of Cypriot food, full of goodness and fresh flavour, based on a handful of key ingredients. In Adelaide, Maeve joins Miroula Kastrappi, who has made haloumi cheese for her family and friends for decades, and then meets a family preparing for Greek Easter. Melbourne chef Ismail Tosun demonstrates how to make bulgur kofta, which are zeppelin-shaped parcels made of cracked wheat made into a dough and stuffed with spiced minced meat.