Brent Owens: Extreme, Authentic & Unwrapped
Aussie excavation worker Brent Owens swapped mud for flour in 2014 when the 27-year-old won season 6 of reality cooking show MasterChef Australia (2009-current). He’s back on the smallscreen, this time with his own cooking show Brent Owens: Extreme, Authentic & Unwrapped (2016-current). And season 1 has a local flavour – Brent filmed it right here in South Africa.
“When I won the [MasterChef] competition, it broadened my horizons,” Brent explains. “It gave me a taste of extreme adventure. To see the world only fuelled the fire for me of me wanting to do more, see more and eat so much more. And that’s when I chose to explore the world’s different flavours.” And he specifically chose SA because “it has a lot to offer. It’s got authentic, extreme and culturally rich cuisines”. What sets Brent apart from the other foreign foodies is that he isn’t interested in fine dining and tourist hot-spots. Instead, he wants to eat, drink and cook alongside the locals in the countryside, cities and rural areas. Plus, he goes on adventures like hiking, shark cage diving and sand-boarding down dunes.
The 13 episodes include doccie-type moving footage that adds to the show’s raw-and-real feel and the camera crew pop into focus every now and again too. But it isn’t all sunshine and roses – Brent’s got his hands full facing his fear of heights, over-enthusiastic ostriches and being away from home. Plus, he’s giving back to communities he visits in SA by volunteering at a soup kitchen for children. “It was a great adventures,” he says. “I learnt a lot about South Africa and it’s people – and I ate good food. A lot of good food!”.