J’AIME JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2022

wide-ranging Asian influences in food there.
“As a chef it’s exciting to find a new
ingredient or a new flavour, so going to a
new country is almost like starting from
scratch; some of the basics are the same,
but you get another perspective on food,”
he explains.
Matt is very honest about the fact that
he’s struggled for the past eight years with
cluster headaches, lasting two or three
months at a time, which had stopped him
progressing to a head chef position.
“I always felt I was letting people down in
the kitchen, because I’d have to go away
for a bit and then I’d come back,” he says.
“They were really tough to get over - I thought I’d
never get to the other side, because there’s no cure
and none of the drugs I was prescribed worked. It
was only when I started to get a grasp on how to
manage them that I decided to apply. I was turning
30 and I wanted to have achieved something that
would better my future.”
This was the motivation for applying to MasterChef:
The Professionals, and Matt’s dishes when he
appeared in that kitchen were a culmination of all
his influences and experiences so far. Every dish he
put forward was a new one, led very much by his
passion for foraging and presenting undiscovered
foraged ingredients. Each aimed to showcase an
ingredient people might not be familiar with, but
used in such a way that the audience watching at
home could understand them in context.
“With a competition like that you have to play to
your strengths,” Matt says. “You have a better chance
of getting through if you stick to what you know. It
used to take me ages to work through a dish - a lot
of trial and error - but there were a few times when I
had only one trial, so even if it wasn’t right I’d have
to go for it and tweak it on the day.”
The most challenging aspect of the whole experience
was contending with the limited amount of time
between recording each show - only two or three
days in the later stages of the competition - while still
going to work at Hipping Hall on the Cumbrian and
Yorkshire Border.
“Sometimes I’d come back from London, do a
service at work, practice a dish, go home, get up
early, go to work, practice a dish and then go back
to the MasterChef kitchen,” says Matt. “It was so
hard to balance everything through the six or seven
weeks of filming. Taking part in the competition was
the toughest thing I’ve ever done. It’s given me a lot
more confidence in the dishes I create, because the
feedback I got throughout the whole show was really
positive.”
In his quest to show the audience at home something
new, Matt included some plants grown from seed
in his garden in Ingleton where he was living at the
time, and some picked wild. A particular favourite
was costmary, an ancient forgotten garden herb.
“It’s almost a cross between mint and rosemary, I
find, and I really wanted to use it in a lamb dish
because they’re classic companions for lamb. It’s
quite strong, but used delicately in the right context
it can be great. There were a few more
ingredients I wanted to use, but obviously I
went out so I didn’t get to!”
So, does Matt have any tips for budding
foragers? The main point is to be very careful
and absolutely certain about what you’ve got
before you eat it, especially when it comes to
mushrooms and fungi.
“It’s taken me years and years of reading and
picking and identifying to get to the point
where I can pick and eat safely,” he stresses. “If
you want to go out foraging, pick something
really simple like wild garlic or, if you’re at
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