The Star: October 12, 2023

The Star Thursday October 12 2023
8
NEWS
Latest Canterbury news at starnews.co.nz
Sixty years of cooking for others:
WHEN SHE was 7-yearsold,
Tina Duncan could turn
out a perfect batch of scones. By
the age of 10, she was confident
enough in the kitchen to turn out
a full roast dinner.
Now, after a lifetime of cooking
for others, Duncan still loves it.
That’s just as well since she says
people are often afraid to cook
for her.
“Everybody wants you when
they know you love food. They
want you to do the food. They
want you to look after them, they
want you to cook for them. It’s
just my love language, really,” she
said.
Duncan is a self-taught cook,
caterer, cooking school tutor and
now author of a new book Plated:
A lifetime love affair with food.
With thousands of recipes to
choose from, she wanted Plated
to reflect not only her catering
experiences but also her culinary
upbringing on the family far,
“There’s things there from my
grandmother, my grandmother’s
brawn recipe because I adore
brawn . . . it’s got my mother’s
shortbread, it’s got cinnamon
oysters that my mother always
made, there’s lots of lovely things
from my childhood as well as
things moving in through my
years.
“My mother was an extraordinary
cook, and you know, you
grow up in a family and you
don’t know how wonderful your
mother was until you go to other
places and realise that not everybody
was eating what you were
eating at home.
‘We had the most
extraordinary vegetable
garden that my father
grew and (my mother) was
really happy to teach me. I
just found my place in the
kitchen with her, and she
was wonderful’
– Tina Duncan
“We ate beautiful meats. We
had the most extraordinary
vegetable garden that my father
grew and (my mother) was really
happy to teach me. I just found
my place in the kitchen with her,
and she was wonderful.”
When she left school Duncan
became a dental nurse but left
that career to travel overseas.
“What you did when you were
doing your OE, the easiest thing
to do was to slot into a restaurant
somewhere. That’s what I did
when I got to London, I went
with my sister and I worked in a
restaurant, and then I just carried
on with that pattern.
“When I came home, we
bought a service station in the
North Island. I was always having
dinner parties. And then
eventually when we moved
south, I worked in a cafe because
we were farming, and farmers
weren’t making money in those
days. So I worked in a local cafe
and did catering, and then I kind
of got sucked into a catering
company in Christchurch and in
the end I bought it.”
Over the years, Duncan and
her White Tie Catering team
– which has included her four
daughters – have provided food
for thousands and thousands of
events.
“One night we did a huge dinner
in Christchurch, in Hagley
Park and there were 11 cabinet
ministers there and the Prime
Minister and I remember the
head chef turning to me and
saying, ‘Tina, we could bring the
country to its knees tonight!’”
Duncan struggles to recall a
total catering disaster, but in the
book she does share the story of a
wedding cake that nearly wasn’t.
“It was a big deal, this wedding
cake, because I had three meetings
about it, and it was supposed
to be me making it. There was a
red carpet down the middle of
the Great Hall in Christchurch
with the cake at the end. And I
hadn’t made it.
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