Have you ever had someone yuck your yum? Have you read outstanding reviews for a hot, new restaurant and found the food disappointing?
Hosted by food writer Jess Ho, Bad Taste is a six-part podcast series that will make you reconsider the perception of good taste.
Each episode will analyse a food, trace back its history, and look at its relevance today through the eyes of guests Nathan Lyons, Rosheen Kaul, Bruce Pascoe, Jacob Birch, Alum Choi, Miin Chan, Beź Zewdie, Ruth Gebreyesus, Thi Le and Vien Tran. Recipe on SBS Food will accompany each episode, starting with fried egg and Spam on rice.
As Jess says, "I spent a lot of time as a food writer oversimplifying any cuisine that wasn't French, which made me wonder why we would expect the general public to automatically know what steak tartare is but have to explain something like yukhoe by comparison."
Every day I saw food culture simplified to nothing more than entertainment. I was sick of it.
"In Bad Taste, I wanted to explore the complexity of different dishes and let them be their own hero. I wanted to explore the full story behind each dish and see how they make us who we are."
The first episode of launches Wednesday May 18. Listen to the trailer now.
Follow Bad Taste in the SBS Radio app, or your preferred podcast app such as Apple Podcasts or Spotify, to get every episode delivered straight to your device.
Host and producer: Jess Ho
Executive producer: Michelle Macklem
Series producer: Bethany Atkinson-Quinton
Producer: Beź Zewdie
Sound designer: Nicole Pingon
Editor: Zoe Tennant
Theme music: Rainbow Chan
Art: Joanna Hu
TRANSCRIPT
Jess Ho: People have a romanticised view of what it means to write about food.
(soft string music enters under the dialogue)
(restaurant ambience with gentle background conversations)
Ho: They imagine you eating and drinking for free in glamorous venues where everyone knows your name and fears your word.
(music cuts out abruptly)
(record scratch sound effect)
Ho: This couldn’t be further from the truth.
(upbeat funky bassline comes in)
Ho:The reality is endless research, and distilling stories to 350 words. It's cutting the nuance and replacing it with what's clickable. It’s subbing out an important story with a profile of a businessman.
(small whooshing sound effect)
Ho: I’m Jess Ho, and I've done it all: PR, waiting tables, bartending, touring events, working in kitchens, owning my own venue... and I was doing that kind of writing for years. My entire life has been about understanding the difference between what’s called ‘good’ and ‘bad’ food.
(bassline fades out)
(thumping sound reverberates and fades out)
Ho: One day I remember sitting down at my desk to write. It was time of year where I had to update the cheap eats list, and a familiar dread crept in.
(warm and uncertain synthesiser chords begin)
Ho: I pulled it up on my screen with deep disdain, and the more I scrolled the angrier I got.
(sound effects of a mouse scrolling)
Jess Ho: Bowls of noodles, kebabs, banh mi, dosa, gozleme, dumplings, hummus. I was expected to rank these foods, because ranked lists pulled up higher in search engines.That didn’t sit right with me. I was being forced to pit businesses owned by people of colour against each other.
Ho: I was being asked to ignore the individuality and complexity of each cuisine. I was being asked to reinforce the myth that immigrant-owned businesses are cheap.
(synthesiser chords reverberate and fade out)
Ho: Just like their cultures. And who was I to judge?
(theme song: ‘Ylang Ylang’ by Rainbow Chan - melodic and curious bassline comes in)
Ho: Everyday, I saw food culture simplified to nothing more than entertainment.The sole purpose was to objectify it.
(theme song: ‘Ylang Ylang’ by Rainbow Chan - twinkly kalimba is layered on top of bassline)
Ho: To conflate and skim over its specificity, language, religion, geography, climate, agriculture, tradition, and identity. So by the time the next editorial meeting came round, I knew I had to say something.
Ho: But the response I received was frustratingly familiar, 'It is what it is. It's how it's always been done.’I was sick of it.
(clap clap sound effect)
(theme song: ‘Ylang Ylang’ by Rainbow Chan - flourishes and swooshes into the chorus with lead melody from synthesiser)
Ho: So, I want to tell the story from the other side.
Ho: Meet people who dare to think differently… who are fighting to have their voice recognised through the ingredients they champion, the aisles they stock, the prices they charge and the people they hire.
(theme song: ‘Ylang Ylang’ by Rainbow Chan - settles and reduces back down to main bassline)
In this series, I’ll cook spam with a respected chef…
Rosheen Kaul: I think I like it more than the original…
Jess Ho: OOooh!
Rosheen Kaul: Is that naughty? Is that controversial?
(clap clap sound effect)
(theme song: ‘Ylang Ylang’ by Rainbow Chan - percussive shakers move along lightly, orchestral strings add an inquisitive and urgent tone)
Ho: Learn how native grasses can save Australia’s soil…
Bruce Pascoe: People say very airly, ‘Oh Aboriginal people would have such wise and beautiful people and had a relationship with the earth.’ I'm happy for people to say that, but bloody believe it and bloody do something about it.
Ho: And talk about the human capacity for funk…
Miin Chan: Our concept of taste, and what is disgusting or not disgusting has always been a way that we separate ourselves from each other.
(theme song: ‘Ylang Ylang’ by Rainbow Chan - distorted guitar with a harpsichord-like sound flicker back and forth)
Ho: You’ll also hear from me.
(light swoosh sound effect)
Ho: My story as a child of immigrants.. trying to find my identity between old-school Cantonese culture and a white Australian backdrop.
(theme song: ‘Ylang Ylang’ by Rainbow Chan - strings echo in the background echoing the main melody)
Ho: This is Bad Taste, an SBS podcast about who we are through the foods we eat.
(theme song: ‘Ylang Ylang’ by Rainbow Chan - music reduces down to just the strings, bright and sorrowful in the background)
Ho: You can listen in the SBS Radio app, at sbs dot com dot au slash bad taste or in your favourite podcast app
(theme song: ‘Ylang Ylang’ by Rainbow Chan - synthesiser blips create a sparky melody that punctuate the ending)
