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Matthew Evans

Food writer & TV host

Matthew Evans is a former chef and food critic turned Tasmanian smallholder. He fattens pigs, milks a cow, tends a garden and writes about food from his office on Fat Pig Farm. Matthew is the author of nine books on food, including the authoritative Real Food Companion, his autobiography Never Order Chicken on a Monday, and the recently co-authored Gourmet Farmer Deli Book. He was also a regular contributor to Feast magazine. Matthew attends markets and food festivals, sometimes in his hot red 1980s Fat Pig food van, specialising in old and rare breed pork. He has appeared in three series of the SBS television show Gourmet Farmer, and is currently filming the fourth series. Matthew is a strong believer in Real Food; food where the provenance is known and the producer valued. He believes in home cooking, using the seasons and your geography as the guide. It is his hope that more and more people will try to grow their own food (just start with parsley and go from there), or know exactly where their produce is coming from.

121blog entries
eat better

21 delicious ways to be a conscious carnivore

Think of this as "An Eating Guide For Conscious Carnivores". I've been thinking a lot about our decisions on what cook while making For The Love of Meat. You can have truly delicious food without making meat the star of the plate at every meal -...
I don’t want Australians feeling guilty every time they eat. Having to worry about potential harm they may be doing. But as I found out when making For the Love of Meat our decisions do matter. And what matters when we eat meat is being mo...
By Matthew Evans

Gourmet Farmer: Back in the game

The little one, believe it or not, is a real chicken’s egg. Not a quail egg or a finch egg. A chicken egg. Sometimes, because chickens can have quite a few eggs passing through their system at the same time, in increasing rates of maturity, a...
We’re back in the egg game seriously now. With the passage of the shortest day a while back, the birds started laying more conscientiously. So it’s luminescent omelettes, golden cakes and saffron coloured dippy eggs once again. In the lean...
By Matthew Evans

Gourmet Farmer: No Gandhi

Funny how you get edited. Once I was the writer, now I’m occasionally quoted. In a lovely recent article that appeared in Fairfax Media, on what’s in my pantry, there was a bit on who has inspired me. A couple of people I included were taken off...
Here are just a few of my local heroes, starting with those edited out of the piece. Terry O’Neill, the neighbour whose market garden I pass every day, who inspires quietly through his knowledge and humility. If my garden is one day 1/8th ...
By Matthew Evans

Gourmet Farmer: Alice & Elsie

I’m a bit disappointed in my broccoli. In only the second year of having a garden at Fat Pig Farm, the broccoli plants are big and blousy. The broccoli heads are fat and tight. And I’m not happy.
Why? Because they look just like the picture on the pack. Never before have our brassicas looked so much like the commercial varieties. Rarely does anything we grow resemble what you might find on a supermarket shelf. But, and it’s partly ...
By Matthew Evans

Gourmet Farmer: The leaves are turning

The long dry summer has given way to emerald green paddocks, but, still, most farms could do with a bit of rain. Our apples are just about finished on the trees. The quince are in, most rescued green from the parrots and the possums.
We’ve harvested the first broccoli, the first cabbage; both while the tomato plants are still hanging from hooks in the shed, as we ripen the last few for the table. We’ve spun the honey from the hive, and left the bees enough to get them ...
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