Wild by nature, The Rambler Co

Tassie chef and adventurer Sarah Glover favours ingredients plucked fresh from nature and cooked over an open fire.

Wearing a denim apron over a white linen dress, Blundstone work boots and a well-loved wide-brimmed hat, with shovel in hand, chef Sarah Glover mans the flames. She rests a hot pan on a log of driftwood and beams a smile as she deftly shifts the coals on the beachside fire, the wild ocean crashing in the background. This is cooking the Sarah Glover way. 

Of course, it is not exclusive to her but it is a style she has become known and loved for. Sarah has forged a successful if perhaps unexpected career from her passion for cooking outdoors, whether at a makeshift kitchen or campfire. With two cookbooks dedicated to wild cooking under her belt, she also runs classes, caters events, and has cooked with the likes of Martha Stewart and Gordon Ramsay – showing the latter how to forage for native cherries and prepare fresh-caught wallaby for his TV show on Tasmania. 

The 37-year-old grew up in a family of eight kids south of Hobart. Being outdoors, often surfing, was the norm. “It was a quiet and peaceful upbringing,” she says. “An adventurous one for sure, I remember spending most of my time outdoors when I wasn’t doing my school work or baking a cake.” 

Sarah became accustomed to the spoils of Tasmania early on in life. She shares childhood memories of picking fresh apricots, peaches, nectarines and mulberries from her backyard, and of digging in the dirt to unearth carrots and gather beans straight from the vine. Those early days of running around her family’s garden, eating whatever she could, have evolved into a confidence in foraging for ingredients for her dishes today. 

A creative soul from a young age, Sarah describes herself as someone who goes against the grain. She says her interest in the outdoors and cooking “came from wanting to escape school work.” “I wasn’t very academic and working with my hands made sense to me. I wish it was a more romantic story, but it was escapism. And cooking gave me confidence.” 

See the full feature here.
This story appears in The Rambler Co’s East Coast Tasmania edition.
Photography by Stefan Haworth.