Peta Mathias

Peta Christine Mathias MNZM is a New Zealand food writer and television show presenter and owns a television production company that produces food and travel shows. She is also known for leading gastronomic tours in the south of France, Morocco, Spain and India.

Mathias was born in Auckland. She initially trained as a nurse and worked at Auckland Hospital for five years. She then moved to Canada, where she lived for six years in Montreal and Vancouver working as a toxicotherapist in drug and alcohol treatment centres. Mathias then moved to London and to Paris and started working in restaurants, first as a dishwasher and later as a chef; eventually she bought a restaurant there, Rose Blues, and ran it for four years.

In 1990, Mathias returned to New Zealand and began to work in food writing and broadcasting. In 2006 she set up a company organising and leading culinary tours, and in 2008 she set up a production company, Red Head Media, to make food and travel television shows based on her travels.

Publications

• Fete Accomplie: A New Zealander's Culinary Romance
• Sirocco: In Search of Moorish Flavours (2002), Random House New Zealand
• Can We Help it if We're Fabulous (2008), Penguin Books ISBN 9780143008040
• Una questione di gusto (A Matter of Taste) with Fulvio Bonavia (2009), De Agostini ISBN 9788841857922
• Burnt Barley: How to Eat, Drink and Sing your way around Ireland
• Just in Time to be Too Late (2009), Penguin Books ISBN 9780143202462
• Fabulous: Thoughts on Being a Woman (2009), Random House New Zealand
• Culinary Adventures in Marrakech (2010), Penguin Books ISBN 9780143204596
• French Toast: Eating and Laughing your way around France (2010), Penguin Books ISBN 9780143206156
• Beat Till Stiff: A Woman's Recipe for Living (2011), Penguin Books ISBN 9780143566700
• Noodle Pillows: A Journey Through Vietnamese Food and Culture (2011), Exisle Publishing
• Never Put All Your Eggs in One Bastard (2016), Penguin Books ISBN 9781775533870
• Hot Pink Spice Saga: an Indian Culinary Travelogue with Recipes with Julie Le Clerc (2014), Penguin Books ISBN 9781775535157

Awards and recognition

In 1997, Mathias won Best Segment in a Food Program at the World Food Media Awards for her segment on TVNZ's series Taste NZ. In 2003, she won the Supreme Award at the New Zealand Guild of Food Writers Culinary Quill Awards. In the 2012 Queen's Birthday and Diamond Jubilee Honours Mathias was appointed a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services as an author and television presenter.

Her book Burnt Barley won Best Literary Food Writing (in English) category at the World Cookbook Fair. The book was released with an accompanying four-track CD of the same name (released on the Vintage label), on which Mathias sings Irish country songs.

In 2014, Hot Pink Spice Saga, which Mathias co-wrote with Julie Le Clerc, was shortlisted in the Best in the World for Indian Cookery category at the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards.