‘All these things connect’: The mates opening up over memories and a meal

Matt Moran and Richard Roxburgh are best mates. But a simple lemon delicious pudding, made by the chef for the actor on the six-part nostalgia series Memory Bites with Matt Moran, took their friendship to another level.

“It was fascinating to sit there and listen to [Roxburgh] talk about his childhood and his food memories and myself not knowing any of that,” Moran says. “Food opens a Pandora’s box of where you were and where you were living, and what the family was doing at the time.”

Not every celebrity who appears on the series, born of a COVID lockdown project and filmed at a grand house in the semi-rural Sydney suburb of Arcadia, is from Moran’s social circle – though he did ask actors Simon Baker and Asher Keddie, who were unavailable, while INXS’s Kirk Pengilly and his surfing champion wife Layne Beachley have joked they would have liked to have been invited.

Joining Roxburgh for Moran’s debut gustatory memory experience are actors Pia Miranda and Danielle Cormack, performer Courtney Act, comedian Ross Noble and singer Christine Anu. All are presented with a “memory box” covertly curated by their friends or family, with items and morsels to transport them back in time. For Miranda and Noble, it was a trip back to their grandmothers’ kitchens. Anu revisits her childhood in the Torres Strait with her spearfishing father. Courtney Act reflects on her beautician mother with a flair for food. And Cormack fondly recalls two iconic Kiwi television chefs.

“Danielle is not just a phenomenal actress, and I’m a big fan, particularly of her work in Wentworth,” Moran says. “She’s such a hard bitch on screen and such a beautiful lady in person. And she has great politics, which I love. She’s a good, true lefty.”

Noble was “hilarious”, though “trying to get a word in with him is a nightmare. He just talks so much. But he’s a true gentleman and incredibly funny.”

Moran was surprised at his response to conversing intimately with Courtney Act. “That’s an interesting one because I’m the most heterosexual male you’ll probably ever meet,” he says. “But there I am, sitting opposite Courtney, and I just found myself naturally flirting. She is very, very beautiful. There’s no question. And those eyes just look at you, and I was hypnotised.”

From Anu, Moran acquired knowledge about an unfamiliar cuisine.

“Some of the things that I learnt about the Torres Strait Islands were fascinating, like the boiled beef and all the fresh seafood,” he says. “I just love her connection to where she grew up. I love the connection to her mob, the diversity of her life and just what she made of herself. She’s an incredible woman with incredible talent. She really made me want to go to the Torres Strait Islands.”

Even for those whose gustatory memory triggers might be limited to “protein and three veg”, as is the case with fourth-generation farmer Moran, he says all dishes can unlock precious formative moments.

“Food brings back memories, no matter what. I remember my father boiling corned beef and then having corned beef sandwiches for the next week,” he says. “Or walking through the dairy farm and getting that last couple of cups of milk of the milk vat when the milk truck turned up. It brings back all my memories of living on a dairy farm.

“I remember being with my Nan on school holidays in Woy Woy and her making date scones, and that brings back memories of me and her playing cards together and making bows and arrows out of the mulberry tree. All those things connect with food.”

If the series is green-lit for a second season, Moran has another well-known friend in mind. “There’s a very, very famous Scottish chef who’s one of my best friends and has been for over 30 years. I go fishing every year in Iceland, so maybe I might be able to convince that boy to come on in one day. You never know.”

Memory Bites with Matt Moran airs on Monday at 7.30pm on SBS Food.

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