It was not the quality and flow of his rhetoric they were after, but a glimpse of the substance he was putting in - tender, juicy, aromatic slices of lamb from 16 lambs chosen to be finalists in the Glammies Awards.
Mr Key was not there to ‘‘chew the fat'' either, staying quiet and patient throughout his 60-minute wait while butcher Geof Christie and chef Graham Hawkes cut and cooked the cuts of meat.
Just before he got to sink his teeth into the job of judging the best cut, Mr Key declared the juices were starting to flow.
‘‘This is not going to be an arduous task at all,'' he said.
Mr Key, Mr Hawkes, and fellow judges chef Mark Sycamore and Meat and Wool New Zealand director David Douglas took turns to sample each plate.
‘‘They are all good . . . It's delicious. It is absolutely beautiful. But there is some variation. You can actually taste it,'' Mr Key said.
Prof Roy Bickerstaff, of Lincoln University, was in the audience and agreed differences in taste should be noticeable. He had subjected each of the chosen lamb cuts to his tenderometer and a CT scan in his laboratory, as part of a scientific analysis of the factors creating the most tender and juicy meat.
New Zealand farmers selected up to 1500 sheep for the Glammies, and staff at various processing plants narrowed the numbers down to one carcass per mob of 50. A leg from each carcass was then sent to Lincoln for tests.
Prof Bickerstaff said he did not know which lamb would eventually win, ‘‘but I do know what contributes to the best one''. The factors affecting taste were muscle quality, stress, ageing and processing, he said.
Glammies winners are expected to be announced about noon today.
While Mr Key concentrated on the meat, Norman Matheson had vegetables on his mind at the show yesterday.
Mr Matheson (78) and his wife, Sally, maintain a massive vegetable garden and regularly enter their produce in the horticulture and home-industry sections of the annual show.
Yesterday, they came up trumps with the best collection of vegetables, winning $4.
Mr Matheson entered broccoli, pumpkin, courgettes, cucumbers, carrots, potatoes, silverbeet, brown onions, red onions, beans, three varieties of tomatoes, green peppers, parsnip, leeks, rhubarb, and a wide selection of homegrown herbs.
The couple's rhubarb also won a first prize of $1 in the keenly contested rhubarb category.
Mr Matheson was unperturbed about the modest sum of money.
‘‘There's a cup that goes with it,'' he said with a smile.
Nor did he mind sharing his gardening secrets. ‘‘I don't know if we have a great plan. We have very good soil at our section at Albert Town. I filled it with sheep manure and water it regularly without watering it excessively. Hoeing is very important and I don't know if I should say it, with organics and everything, but so is spraying for the bugs,'' he said.
The Mathesons produced enough food in their garden to be mostly self-sufficient in vegetables and also give plenty away, he said.
