Before X Factor there was New Faces, before Masterchef ... Graham Kerr, before Country Calendar there was ... er, Country Calendar. This collection picks the screen gems from the decade that gave Kiwi pop culture, "miniskirts, teenagers — and television." Peter Sinclair, Sandy Edmonds, Howard Morrison, and Ray Columbus star. Do your mod's nod and C'mon! 

Without food life would not only be boring, but impossible. Television networks obviously agree: scan the TV listings, and cooking programmes are visible everywhere from My Kitchen Rules to Masterchef and Come Dine with Me. This collection offers up a smorgasbord of local chefs and culinary delights, and the chance to look back at a kinder, less competitive style of cooking show. Featuring the legendary Alison Holst, 1960s era import Graham Kerr, Wellington’s Logan and Brown, the sometimes cruel, sometimes kind Hudson and Halls, and more.

Real Pasifik is a roving celebration of Pacific food and culture. Inspired by chef Robert Oliver’s acclaimed cookbook Me’a Kai, the show follows Oliver as he travels across the Pacific, aiming to inspire resort chefs to showcase indigenous cuisine. In this opening episode of the first series, Oliver heads to the Cook Islands where he visits a marae for a kai blessing, before tasting goat and taro from an an umu (earth oven). He goes lagoon spear fishing, samples pink potato salad (aka ‘mayonnaise’) and serves up a banquet of locally-cooked food to assembled VIPs. 

Kai Time on the Road premiered in Māori Television’s first year of 2003. It has become one of the channel’s longest running series. Presented largely in te reo and directed and presented for many years by chef Pete Peeti, the show celebrated food harvested from the land, rivers and sea. Kai Time traversed the length and breadth of New Zealand, and ventured into the Pacific. The people of the land have equal billing with the kai, and the korero with them is a major element of the show —  often over dishes cooked on location. Rewi Spraggon succeeded Peeti for the final two seasons.

In this bilingual cooking series made for Māori Television, globetrotting chef Joe McLeod presents international dishes combined with New Zealand ingredients and elements of traditional Māori cuisine. In this episode, fish is the order of the day as McLeod prepares pan fried groper fillet, a southern crayfish medley, salmon and potato cakes, and Fijian baked fish on succulent vegetables. The less piscatorial desserts include crepes with diced mango and apple, vanilla custard with a tangy mango jelly, and lemon and honey cake. 

Chef Cameron Petley was a fan favourite on the 2011 season of MasterChef New Zealand. In 2015 the Putaruru outdoorsman got his own Māori TV cooking show. The 20-part series saw down-home Cam (Tūhoe, Ngāti Ranginui) touring local markets and dining with whānau, providing tips for tasty kai. In this first episode he visits Avondale Markets with Dead Lands actor Lawrence Makoare, and heads home to shuck mussels, talk fusion food (mussel donuts!), and cook Makoare’s KFC (“kai for cuzzies”) fritters; in return he throws together a duck and watercress salad.

In this bilingual cooking series made for Māori Television, chef Joe McLeod calls on a career that has taken him to 36 countries to present international dishes combined with NZ ingredients and elements of traditional Māori cuisine. In this debut episode, he adapts one of his mother’s favourite dishes from his childhood as he substitutes salmon for her Taupō trout, and serves it with pūhā, dried kawakawa leaves and a simple Māori herb sauce. The programme’s main course is liver sautee with a tangy lemon herb sauce, and the dessert is a peach and plum trifle.

Globetrotting Wellington chef Joe McLeod (Ngāi Tūhoe) has cooked professionally in more than 30 countries over the course of a career that began in 1972. In this bilingual series made for Māori Television, he takes recipes, tastes and flavours that he has encountered on those travels, and combines them with local NZ ingredients (including some of the 70 varieties of native greens used in traditional Māori cuisine). In each episode, McLeod reminisces in English and te reo about his life and travels as he prepares a starter, a main and a dessert.

The subjects covered in this Asia Downunder episode range from how pig cells can be used to treat diabetes (Street Talk gets some public feedback on the issue) to the issue of illegal home satellite dishes. Operation Restore Hope's charity work in the Phillipines is examined and there are profiles of a father and daughter team of chefs, and of Asian rock band Infinite Flying Kick. Street Talk asks "are boy racers a menace to society?". Meanwhile in the kitchen Asia Downunder veteran Bharat Jamnadas cooks spicy corn fritters.

This award-winning lifestyle series took Wellington chefs Al Brown and Steve Logan out of their fine dining restaurant kitchen, and off on a mission to put the local in 'locally sourced' kai. In this episode it's wild food on a wild river — whitebaiting on the Mokihinui. Brownie gets a primo 'stand' and coaster advice; and Steve gets some Green Fern lager and meets a Department of Conservation ranger who tells the whitebait's perilous life story and nets a grown-up: a kokopu. Then it's riverside fritters with beurre blanc sauce and asparagus, washed down with a glass of pinot gris.