Bush Legends: Ian Parmenter: From Fleet Street to a foodie icon of the Margaret River community

A pioneer for the food television phenomenon that has become part of Australia’s small screen psyche, Ian Parmenter bemoans the modern form it has taken. Parmenter, who presented 450 episodes of the ABC’s Consuming Passions over a decade until 2001, is acutely perturbed by the lack of kitchen credence in modern food reality television. “I hate them,” Parmenter blurts as he sips a chardonnay at his Osmington home in the State’s South West. “We were showing that food can be fun and that food is about nurture. Now food is competitive and that’s chicanery. It really is awful when you’re pitting two teams against each other and employing psychologists to generate angst. “It’s insane. You don’t ever cook with seconds to go.” The way Parmenter fossicks around places such as his picturesque vineyard, which has produced the award-winning Artamus wine, or the Margaret River Primary School’s kitchen garden, shows his passion for all things food is still genuinely consuming. A Fleet Street journalist in London before moving to Australia in 1971 to help his then-wife Janet’s chronic bronchial illness, Parmenter carved his initial media identity on the production side of the camera after being hired by late WA media legend Ross Elliott. He was then cast into his Consuming Passions fame largely because ABC producers liked his kitchen. The sprightly 75-year-old claims to have manufactured both his distinctive look and quirky character for the program, but any time spent with him reveals plenty that rings true to his regular persona. It almost feels like most of Margaret River drops by to say hello as he dines daily for breakfast at his favourite Blue Ginger cafe. Later, as his goldband snapper arrives on a lunch plate at the bustling Margaret River Brewhouse, there is a clear familiarity as the waiter adds a, “Hello, Ian”, breaking up a string of personal yarns featuring global notables such as Ben Elton, Paul Kelly, Tim Brooke-Taylor and Ray Charles among many more. They are stories his wife, Ann Dewar, the produce-grower of the pairing, claims she has heard “a thousand times”. Even a lady spotting Parmenter’s trademark red beret as he walks through the town centre soon after, feels compelled to stop her car in the middle of the road to offer her greetings. After producing the first Leeuwin Concert featuring Ray Charles and the WA Symphony Orchestra for the ABC in 1988, Parmenter and his wife bought their Osmington property in 1992 — the same year he started broadcasting Consuming Passions — and seem every bit as comfortable there. But he said the tight and unassuming community was treated harshly after the 2018 farmhouse massacre when Peter Miles shot dead his wife, Cynda, their daughter, Katrina, and her four children before turning the gun on himself. “When you tell people where you live and say Osmington, they say, ‘Oh, where the murders happened’ ... it’s that kind of reaction,” he said. “The fallout was horrible, absolutely devastating and shocking and the community was enormously impacted. There were choppers and drones flying over all our properties and the way the locals were dealt with was so invasive. “People were being pestered and they were already suffering enormously because of the devastating news.” But there is in-built resilience in connected communities like that of Osmington and Parmenter said he originally fell in love with his adopted home because of its rich diversity and distinct community feel. “We’re different,” he said. “It’s the way the Dutch refer to the Belgians as being ‘Unders’, which is sort of, not like us. But the area physically is amazing because we’ve got a mixture of soils on the river bank and that means it’s a perfect place for growing chardonnay or cabernet or pretty much anything. “You’ve got people growing corn up the road, olives, garlic and other products from this strip and there are animals grazing on the properties. Everything I really enjoy about cooking is here and we don’t grow things we don’t need to. “We’re not cool enough to do cherries and stone fruit, but just about anything else we can have a crack at. I couldn’t be more proud of this community.” Parmenter’s love for the area is similar to that of tens of thousands who have called Margaret River home since it became known for its famous jarrah way back in the 1830s. The timber industry boomed for 100 years which led to a flourishing farming and dairy culture. Then, in 1965, the area was reported to be perfect for viticulture — with the first commercial vines planted a year later. Since then, the South West has become world famous for its cabernet and chardonnay wines while, off the coast, surfers slice across some of the most glorious waves on the globe. The Margaret River region is a veritable world of great produce and Parmenter seems to be well across all of it and those who produce it. Primary school kitchen garden specialist and co-ordinator Terri Sharpe said Parmenter was an integral part of the program that grew more than 100 products from apples to zucchini. The program, part of the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Foundation named after a close friend of Parmenter, aims to give children the hands-on skills of planting and growing as well as harvesting, cooking and sharing their food. He is a foundation ambassador. “The connections he has in the local community, you can’t buy that and it’s very important for the promotion of this program,” Ms Sharpe said. “It makes my job easier because when there’s a face that people recognise, it just becomes familiar. He’s not afraid to turn something into something fun and the kids really relate to that. This is an extremely popular program because there is no judgment.” Parmenter said that while Australia’s general knowledge of food has greatly improved in recent years, kitchen gardens could become a more valuable life resource if the concept had more curriculum support from the State Government. “They have to be more proactive in getting things happening, especially in the high schools,” he said. “The high school home economics syllabus is ridiculous. The kids leave primary school having done their kitchen garden and they’re ahead of the high school bunch when they go in there.” In his post-screen life, Parmenter has become a prolific “Letters to the Editor” writer, prosecuting his view on a wide range of topics including the building of Optus Stadium, a coal mine in Margaret River, development at Gnarabup beach, genetically modified crops, potato industry over-regulation, caged chickens and local produce being “over-packaged to buggery”. Some arguments have aged better than others, but have all been pursued with a genuine goodwill for betterment. “I wish we didn’t have to fight for things, but we have to because I really worry about kids’ futures and I want to leave the world in a better place — which it is except for COVID,” the one-time editor of the Kalamunda Reporter, co-founder of Fremantle’s Fly By Night Club and former Fremantle Arts centre director said. Parmenter looks back somewhat incredulously about how a family move from England to Belgium when he was nine, acquainted him with gastronomic delights such as chips and mayonnaise and triggered a life-long love for food. A competent musician and sportsman in his younger days, he has never fancied himself as an elite chef. But he has satisfaction in his commitment and contribution to the Australian food industry, particularly when he thinks about how life in his English homeland could have been so very different. “When I reflect, I couldn’t imagine back then my life now,” he said. “Not in a million years could I have imagined it because it has just been so, so rich since I came here. “I’ve never had a plan, never. It’s all just stuff where I’ve seen an opportunity and I’ve gone for it. “I’ve had an interesting life.”