As a child, MasterChef contestant Brenton Thornton would hover around the edge of a hangi built by his uncles, waiting anxiously for the pit to be pulled up and the kai to be ready. Now, at 24, Brenton’s decided to “pull finger” and get back in touch with his roots, finally learning the art of Maori cooking so he can one day teach his children the skills that have been passed down from his elders.
“I’m just now starting to learn about it for myself,” he says, pushing his dreadlocks off his shoulder. “I grew up around Maori culture and cooking, but I never really took much notice. Now that I’m older, I want to learn so I can show my children, as I was shown by my uncles.”
For Brenton, the skills of Maori cooking serve as a family heirloom – one that is to be passed down through generations – fuelling his desire to perfect the tricky art of putting down a hangi. This means a fair few holes are about to be dug in the backyard of his Auckland home.
“It will be trial and error,” he grins. “Overcooking it a few times, undercooking it a few times, until I figure out when it’s done. That’s the tricky thing, it’s not like you can just stick a thermometer in it!”
Even though MasterChef didn’t let him dig any holes outside the set, the softly spoken Ngapuhi man has found ways of incorporating the steamed, smoky flavours of the hangi into his challenge dishes.
“I’m a huge fan of smoking food… anything that will soak up flavour. I did that for the Navy challenge,” he says of the episode that fortuitously saw him given the task of cooking Maori bread. “Yeah, everyone found that quite amusing!” he laughs.
Preferring to keep his cooking simple and flavourful, Brenton’s instinctual style caused him a bit of worry going into the MasterChef kitchen. “Throughout the whole competition I’ve felt really out of my league. The knowledge the other contestants had – things like paella. I was like, ‘What the hell is paella? What the hell is a rémoulade?’” he says with wide eyes.
Instead of relying on technique, all of Brenton’s food comes straight from the heart, a product of the decades of knowledge passed down from both sides of his whanau. “Everyone in my family is an amazing cook – my uncles and aunties on my mum’s side, my nana on my mum’s side, even my poppa, who’s now passed. He was an awesome cook, apparently, and really experimental. “My nanny Kaimanu taught my mum heaps, which she’s passing on to me. I never met her, so it’s awesome that she’s still been able to pass on that knowledge,” he says.
An exceptionally easygoing guy, Brenton suddenly turns serious when discussing food – his true passion. Having turned his life upside down to join the show, Brenton says the experience has been amazing. “It has meant giving up the house and the income, and my car blew up the same week [I found out I was on MasterChef]. It was a gutting week! But we’ve had so many experiences we wouldn’t have had otherwise, and I’ve made amazing, lifelong friends,” he says.
Despite his prowess in the kitchen, Brenton’s not the only chef at home, with his long-term partner doing her fair share of the cooking. “And I still go to Mum’s for dinner too,” he says with a grin.
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