WHEN food tribes are becoming folklore and celebrity diets are gaining cult-like status, French chef Manu Feildel takes a refreshing approach to eating.
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Born in Brittany and trained across the channel in England, Manu has retained a Frenchman’s love of food.
“What’s French when it comes to cooking is eating everything and anything — lots of butter, lots of cream; lots of cheese; lots of salt; stews; every kind of protein — that’s what I believe and I know some of it is not healthy but when I studied my job, I didn’t look at the healthy part of the job, I looked at the tasty part of the job,” he said.
“There’s a saying: ‘Never trust a skinny chef’. That’s my philosophy.
“I love food every way and any way but I think it’s all in moderation.
“Simple as that.”
The My Kitchen Rules judge was espousing his foodie views at Wodonga TAFE this week when he took a master class for Border and Sydney food writers, bloggers and critics in his role as ambassador for Murray Valley Pork.
Manu cautioned against any diet that excluded whole food groups.
“If you only eat protein it’s bad, if you only eat fat it’s bad, if you only eat sugar it’s bad; if you eat a little bit of everything I don’t think it really matters,” he said.
The fifth-generation chef and newly second time dad shares the cooking at home with his partner, Clarissa Weerasena.
While food is central to both their lives, they don’t have any specific rituals aside from shopping.
“We shop on a daily basis, we decide on a daily basis what we want,” he said.
“Sometimes we skip breakfast and go straight to brunch.
“My partner is Malaysian-Chinese-Sri Lankan so she cooks amazing food; sometimes she cooks, sometimes I cook, sometimes we go out, sometimes we take away.
“I’m a normal guy loving every kind of food.”
The couple had their first child together last month, a daughter named Charlee.
Asked about concerns raised over his MKR co-host Pete Evans’ ability to judge since he had adopted his strict paleo lifestyle, Manu is quick to douse the flames.
“I think it’s BS as they say in the new world,” he said.
“He’s been a professional chef for as long as I’ve been a professional chef; between us it’s 50 years in the industry.
“He can choose his lifestyle like everybody else; it shouldn’t change his judgement.
“The fact he’s changed his diet doesn’t change the fact of his knowledge.”
Manu and the Sydney media visited Rivalea at Corowa this week and dined at Broadgauge in Wodonga.