To celebrate 25 glorious years of Food in a Minute, we jimmied open an old can of something in the content pantry and discovered a truly delicious Allyson Gofton blooper reel.

The opening seconds of Food in a Minute will evoke different memories for different people. As a child of the 90s, it signalled two crucial things – dinner is firmly on the way (good) and the news is about to begin (bad). Even 25 years later, I almost instantly begin to salivate at the sight of those cascading peas and the sound of that jaunty commercial jazz.

Since 1996, the snackable cooking segment has been a mainstay on New Zealand screens, teaching the nation how much you can get done with a can of baked beans and half a thing of frozen vegetables. Chef Allyson Gofton carried the series into the 2000s, the perfectly warm and accomodating host who could do no wrong – even when confronted with curried sausages from a jar.

To celebrate 25 years of Food in a Minute, The Spinoff unearthed a delicious Gofton blooper reel from the 1990s. As it turns out, nothing tastes sweeter seeing a national icon beat herself up with a Christian Bale-style “NO, NO, NO” for accidentally saying “cruspy” instead of “crusty”, or simply staring straight down the barrel of the camera and muttering “I can’t remember a thing.”

Please enjoy.