Maggie Beer
| Maggie Beer | |
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Maggie Beer at the Australia Day citizenship ceremony at Commonwealth Park in Canberra
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Margaret Anne Ackermann 19 January 1945 Sydney, Australia |
| Spouse(s) | Colin Beer (m. 1970) |
| Website | maggiebeer |
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Maggie Beer AM (born 19 January 1945) is an Australian cook, food author, restaurateur and food manufacturer.
Maggie Beer was born Margaret Anne Ackermann in Sydney in January 1945, to Ronald Ackermann, who has German ancestry from his paternal grandparents, and Doreen Carter, who has English ancestry from her maternal great-grandparents. Her father's ancestors lived in Hill End located in regional New South Wales and were gold miners. Beer believed they were Jewish, but this was refuted in an episode of Who Do You Think You Are?, as it emerged that her ancestors had been Catholic for as long as there were records.
She grew up with her family in Sydney's western suburbs. Beer's parents faced issues with bankruptcy as she was growing up and re-invented themselves as caterers. She stated this contributed to her strong work ethic later in life. Beer did not complete her high school education, instead choosing to leave school to help the family at the age of 14 and worked in various jobs, including one as a elevator operator in a New Zealand department store and an assistant to a senior geophysicist for British Petroleum in Libya before returning to Sydney in 1968. Beer has traced her passion for food to her childhood: "Food was vital; there was a real interest in food and its quality and an obsession with freshness. Cooking was just accepted, it was part of the norm."
Despite not having any formal training as a chef, Beer has accumulated a triumphant career spanning almost five decades. Her only paid cooking job was at a Scottish sailing school during a European trip in her early twenties. She stated: "I used the whole of their larder for the four-month season in eight weeks because I'm a very generous cook, that's the only way I know how to cook". After relocating from Sydney to the Barossa Valley, Maggie and her husband Colin established the Farm Shop in 1979 which morphed into the Barossa Pheasant Farm Restaurant later that year. The restaurant became known for serving locally sourced pheasant as well as a pate, known as Pheasant Farm Pate. Maggie and Colin operated the hugely successful restaurant until 1993. Later, she became a partner in the Charlick's Feed Store restaurant in Ebenezer Place, located in the Adelaide city centre.
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Wikipedia