Latest features Tommi Miers interview

Date Published:

03/10/2007

They say there's no such thing as a free lunch. But 'they' clearly haven't met Guy Grieve & Tommi Miers, a pair of adventurers, writers, and free-lunch experts.

The dynamic duo have traveled the length of Britain surviving on the food that they are able to hunt, forage, shoot or catch. Channel 4's new series, Wild Gourmets, follows the pair on their mission not just to survive off the land, but to dine like royalty in the process. Benjie Goodhart & Alex Larman caught up with the writer, cook and restaurateur Tommi Miers.

Did winning Masterchef change your life?
I was working in food before, but I wasn't cooking for a living. I guess what Masterchef did was made me think I could be a chef, so in that respect it totally changed my life. It gave me the confidence to do that. I went straight into a kitchen after that and cheffed for six months. Before that I'd never have thought I was good enough. And it made me more credible - people suddenly took what I was saying a bit more seriously.

You filmed the series in the autumn. Was that a conscious decision because it was the best time, food-wise?
For wild foods there are definitely two really rich seasons: the traditional harvest time, when we went out, and spring, when there are new shoots and lots of different mushrooms. Spring and autumn are the best times to go.

And as well as the seasons, the regions really affect the food type as well, don't they?
Yes, absolutely. Which is lovely for variety. Food is so regional in other countries, like Mexico, Italy, France and China as prime examples. But nobody ever thinks food is regional in Britain, so it was really fun being able to show the difference between foods in different areas.

What was the best dish you made?
I think we both fondly remember the hind that Guy shot, and then we enjoyed as a beautiful fillet of venison that took minutes to cook. And another time I went mushrooming and came back with a beautiful multi-coloured basket of mushrooms that I cooked, and they were delicious.

Did you cook anything that was pretty disastrous?
Greater Reed Mace. Something that you might think of as a bull rush. It sticks out of a pond. The root of that in winter has carbohydrate on it. I foolishly thought that the expert books I was reading had missed out on a wonderful way to cook it, so I tried making hash brown-type things, and it didn't really work that well. I was trying to reinvent the wheel.

What was your best moment on the trip?
The bet bit for me was when I woke up in the middle of one night. We went to bed so early, because we went to bed when the sun went down. I remember waking up thinking "Gosh, it's dawn already" because it was so light. And I stepped out of my tent, and there was frost all over the field we were in, so it looked like it had snowed, and I looked up and it was a completely full moon, the most beautiful, large, hanging moon over this big oak tree, and it was casting these amazing shadows. I went back into my tent, and the stove pipe was puffing lovely patterns of smoke across the tarpaulin, and it just felt so free. It was really wonderful.

What was your worst moment?
Storms, torrential rain, freezing cold. Trying to cook venison stew in a force twelve gale in Scotland. That was pretty miserable. Thinking 'What am I doing here?"

You've just opened a restaurant, Wahaca. How's that going?
It's incredible. Exhausting, but incredible. I think that people are more open to new flavours and experiences now than they were – look at the way Indian food's a mainstay now. And Mexican food is delicious. It's under-explored, and people are occasionally a bit sceptical. I'll always love English food, but it's impossible for me not to do Mexican, because I see it as my duty to convert people. The challenge, I guess, is to up the ante.

What's the next series going to involve?
We're going to go to Spain, and I'm really looking forward to challenging a lot of the preconceptions and clichés that people have about food out there. Everyone thinks of paella, and it's really not like that. Italy and France were too familiar – even though I love them – but this will be more of a challenge. In a good way.