Peter Russell-Clarke

Peter Russell-Clarke's Come and Get It show, which screened on the ABC for nine years, was like 1980s TikTok: each a juicy five-minute bite focusing on ingredients, farm-to-table philosophy, interviews and a cooking demonstration, all driven by a host so joyful he couldn’t stop chuckling. 

Russell-Clarke (1935–2025) was an artist as well as one of our first celebrity chefs. He spent some of his childhood on the streets in Melbourne, foraging scraps from the Victoria Market and from restaurants’ discards. He went on to write and illustrate his own cookbooks, cooked for royalty, championed Australian farmers and products, and was ahead of his time in foregrounding healthy, fresh ingredients.  

This clip is from Eyewitness News in 1981, before Come and Get It appeared. In it, he talks us through a Hong Kong breakfast, and cooks his own version of dim sum – with rather suspicious speed.  

Russell-Clarke will be fondly remembered by everyone who tuned in to Come and Get It, humming along with the G’day-peppered theme song.