G’Day Gourmet is proud to present authentic Aussie cuisine that invites the world to explore and experience the rich cultural and culinary histories of our homeland.
Homemade Goes Worldwide
Growing up in Australia and New Zealand, Chef Michael Peacock and his classmates lived for Friday school lunch, an end-of-week celebration featuring the local tuck shop’s (a tuck shop is a deli, cafe or bakery) traditional meat pies, delivered hot and fresh to their classrooms. At home, Mike’s Mum and Dad crafted a wide variety of heritage Aussie dishes, including their own meat-filled pastries baked from heirloom family recipes passed down through generations.
Upon his family’s immigration to America in the early 1980s, much to Mike’s surprise, his beloved meat pies were nowhere to be found. Inspired by his parents’ cooking, Mike sought a restaurant job as a young teen, where his diligence as a dishwasher earned him occasional cookery lessons from head chefs. During years spent exploring the restaurant world, Mike discovered a natural knack for preparing his home nation’s fare in his own kitchen and set out to further develop his family’s recipes.
On a mission to share Australia’s favorite meal with his new home, Mike eventually launched the first Flying Pie Guy food truck, a venture inspired in part by the café his aunt once operated on the beach of Australia’s Gold Coast. To this day, G’Day Gourmet remains a family operation—all G’Day recipes must first pass Mum and Dad’s taste test before they meet the world!
Legend of the Flying Pies
Aussie foodie folklore tells of a nineteenth-century Englishman named William Francis King, sent down under by his pious father with instructions to join the clergy, who upon arrival in Australia grew more interested in nutritional than spiritual nourishment.
After getting to know and love the rich regional fare, King became famous throughout southeastern Australia for two things—crafting his own delicious handheld meat pies and performing “great feats of pedestrianism” in order to sell them.
Having baked a massive batch of meat pies in the morning, King was widely known to speed-walk a tremendous distance to the Sydney docks, where he happily peddled his still-hot pies to famished ferry-goers.
As the ferry departed, King would pack his remainders and hustle along at a rate that allowed him to beat the ferry to its next stop. Upon docking, amazed commuters met the same peddler they had just left behind, earning King gasps, applause and requests for seconds.
As word spread about the “Flying Pie Man”, fascinated locals began to wager with one other regarding the distances King could cover daily. Nearly 150 years later, local legend has it that King never missed a dock, nor served a tepid pie.
When Chef Mike took up pie craft, he adopted the “Flying Pie” moniker in honor of King, changed the “Man” to “Guy”, and set out to serve his own fresh homemade pies to the masses—and in record time, thanks to his food truck!