Everybody eats, but who gets to define what good food is? Join food writer Jess Ho on a journey through their pantry to dissect how Australian palates came to be. Meet expert eaters, farmers, researchers and chefs fighting to have their voice recognised - through the ingredients they champion, the aisles they stock, the prices they charge and the people they hire. People who dare to think differently and are all curious about the same question: what is good taste anyway?
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Should you really add olive oil or salt to your coffee, or microwave your tea? Can rice and bread be that bad for us if we’ve been eating these staples forever? Which seafoods are sustainable? And should I say no to cheese boards? It can be so tricky trying to consume the ‘right things’, and the forces that shape our diets go far beyond what’s supposedly ‘good for us’. On Should You Really Eat That?, food writer Lee Tran Lam untangles the social, cultural and nutritional confusion around the ...
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The Culinary Archive Podcast is a series from the Powerhouse with food journalist Lee Tran Lam exploring Australia’s foodways: from First Nations food knowledge to new interpretations of museum collection objects, scientific innovation, migration, and the diversity of Australian food. Contributing editor Lee Tran Lam is a freelance journalist who has worked with The Sydney Morning Herald, Gourmet Traveller, The Guardian, SBS Food, FBi, ABC, Australian Financial Review, Rolling Stone and Turk ...
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Seafood: Cooking inspiration, mercury magnet, cultural storyteller
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33:18
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Our taste for seafood goes back a long time. We’ve been snacking on shellfish for more than 100,000 years. And the foods we gather from the ocean (whether it’s mussels or seaweed) are typically loaded with nutrients. But today, people might reconsider these staples because of environmental, ethical or health concerns – so should you limit your cons…
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Cheese: Calcium source, place marker, vegan inspiration
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26:52
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Our love of cheese is so vast, it can be plotted across the planet. From Gorgonzola in Italy to Oaxaca in Mexico, many places are famous for their wedges and wheels. But can you go overboard with a cheese board? And what if you don’t eat dairy at all? Lee Tran Lam wheys it all up with cheesemaker Giuseppe Minoia, chef Shannon Martinez and dietitian…
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Coffee: Caffeine hit, productivity booster, wedding custom
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Around the world, people drink coffee – whether it’s sweetened with condensed milk in Vietnam or spiced with cinnamon in Mexico. It powers us through our workdays, deadlines and boring office meetings. Maybe that’s why it’s the most socially acceptable drug we consume – but is there a limit to how much we should have or what it can really do?…
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Tea: Scandal water, life saver, yum cha essential
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Tea is the most-consumed drink on the planet, second only to water. Originally consumed for medicinal reasons, a well-brewed pot also helps with break-ups and bad news. But are there certain instances where we should put our teacups away?
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Bread: Historic staple, riot-starter, loneliness cure
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28:50
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The oldest bread that still exists today was baked 14,500 years ago in Jordan. We’ve eaten this staple for a long time, but rejecting bread because it’s ‘bad’ for you has become a modern trend. Should we be saying no to loaves and toast?
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Rice: Dietary staple, daily greeting, and nutritional villain?
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When dietitian Susie Burrell named white rice as something she’d never put in her shopping trolley, food writer Lee Tran Lam was intrigued... and a little confused. Rice is the star of so many national dishes and it feeds half the planet! "Have you eaten rice yet?” is even a greeting in many parts of Asia. So should we really be avoiding these grai…
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Introducing Should You Really Eat That? A new podcast that makes sense of food confusion
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It can be extraordinarily confusing keeping up with what foods are ‘good’ for you. Should you actually put olive oil or salt in your coffee as recent food trends suggest? Is white rice a no go? And which seafoods are actually sustainable? In Should You Really Eat That? host Lee Tran Lam explores the cultural, social, and nutritional confusion over …
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In 1770, naturalists Joseph Banks and Daniel Solander reportedly saw wild soybeans in Botany Bay. The following century, the Japanese government sent soybeans to Australia as a gift. Thanks to Chinese miners in the 1800s, tofu was most probably part of gold rush diets, but it wasn’t until just a few decades ago – with the growing vegetarian movemen…
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The tomato was dismissed as poison for 200 years in Italy, though it’s now celebrated as a staple of its cuisine. Italian migration to Australia helped make the tomato a mainstream ingredient here. Learn about the people who grow it, preserve it or cook it — whether it’s Italian Australians bottling passata in their ‘second kitchen’ (garage) in Syd…
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Australia is famous for its coffee culture, but it didn’t begin with Italian post-war migration. There was the rise of coffee palaces during the 19th century temperance movement and the influential Depression-era coffee shops run by Russian migrant Ivan Repin (who offered fresh-roasted beans when stale, day-old coffee was standard). The impact of I…
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Australian colonial history begins with beer: the Endeavour left England with 250 barrels on board. The drink reflects the changing fortunes of women, from Australia’s first female licensee to the 1960s feminist fight to allow women into public bars. Beer has always bubbled over into politics, with Reschs’ owner, Edmund Resch, thrown into a local i…
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Long before local authorities tried to ban sliced bread, Australia was home to the world’s first bakers. Grindstones, some 65,000 years old, suggest Indigenous communities have been baking for millennia and there’s an amazing effort to bring back this cultural knowledge and revive Indigenous grains. While Australia has had a fraught relationship wi…
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The history of Australia can be told in an oyster shell. For thousands of years, First Nations communities feasted on these mollusks and collected them in middens – a millennia old example of sustainability. Sydney was literally constructed from oysters. Our roads were paved with them because the shellfish was so abundant, and the crushed-up shells…
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Ever wonder how a by-product of beer gave us Vegemite, an Australian icon? Have you heard about the bakers producing pide, damper or Johnny cakes from ancient Middle Eastern or Indigenous grains? Did you know our roads and buildings used to be constructed from oysters? Or that soybeans can be transformed into plastic and cars? To find out about all…
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Instant noodles are notoriously easy on the wallet and simple to prepare. But why is this affordable staple turning into a luxury item?
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Everyone loves bánh mì because they’re cheap and satisfying, but have you ever thought about what the human cost is in keeping the price so low?
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When we think of colonisation and its impact on cuisine, Italy invading Africa probably doesn’t come to mind first. In this episode of Bad Taste we unpack the messy history of a dish that's much-loved by the East African diaspora.
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Fermented food is a growing industry thanks to wellness warriors and celebrity chefs, but is what you’re eating actually anything like the real thing?
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Will native grains be key to saving Australia’s water?
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Farmers have grown grain in Australia on a commercial scale for years, but none of it is indigenous to our country. We talk to industry experts Bruce Pascoe and Jacob Birch about the potential of native grain crops and the impact they can have on Australia.
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People either love or hate Spam, but its popularity is undeniable. Find out why it is in such high demand in this episode of Bad Taste.
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Bad Taste: A podcast about who we are through the foods we eat
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Who gets to decide what good and bad food is? Join food writer Jess Ho as they investigate foods like spam, native grains and bánh mì in this new SBS podcast.
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