What’s your favourite food? We’re excited to be cooking up a storm with our next Fireside Chats on Food, Culture and Identity.

Food is something that is deeply ingrained and personal for all of us. Being Asian Australian can often mean having to juggle both Asian and Australian influences and having to understand where food fits into this space. As a “multicultural” country, Australia has had its fair share of tensions between cultures that exist which ultimately manifest through food as well.

Some key points we’ll explore include:

🥟 The role food plays as a medium for intercultural understanding

🥟 The ownership of stories and recipes surrounding Asian food and cooking.

🥟 The delicate balance between respecting the tradition and the integrity of cultural dishes without gatekeeping creativity and innovation.

🥟 The past and future of Asian cuisine and representation in the Australian food scene.

Details

Event: Fireside Chats: Food, Culture and Identity

Date: Tuesday 1st of March

Time: 7pm - 9:30pm AEDT

Price: $3 + Booking Fee. For those are unable to pay the ticket fee, AAP will also have a bursary of tickets available. For more information please get in touch with AAP at hello@asianaustralianproject.com

This event will be recorded, which may include some audio recording during the Q&A. Please let a member of the AAP team know if you would not like to be recorded.

Join us over as we chat to up and coming Asian-Australian chefs, esteemed food historians and journalists passionate about the intersection of food, culture and identity.

Esca Khoo (Him/ He)- Head Chef at Miss Mi

Borneo born Australian chef Esca is on a mission to redefine and envision the future and possibilities of Asian cuisine, working with his imagination, memories, time and place to serve up his progressive neo asian cuisine. A chef driven by the creativity, dedication, diversity, passion and art of the culinary world. Chef Esca has honed his craft across a wide range of food establishments over 12 years – from the small to Australia’s best fine-dining restaurants including the Noma Australia project, Dinner by Heston Blumenthal, Longrain and more including collaborations all over Asia. And now, with a purpose for merge cultures, reimagined classic staple dishes and to inspire the next generation.

Dr. Cecilia Leong Salobir (She / Her) - Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Western Australia

Dr Cecilia Leong-Salobir is Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Western Australia and University of Wollongong. She is a food historian and has published on colonial food history and food history of Asia and Australia. Her monographs are Urban Food Culture in Asia Pacific: Sydney, Shanghai and Singapore in the 20th Century (Palgrave Macmillan 2019) and Food Culture in Colonial Asia: A Taste of Empire (Routledge 2011). She also edited the Routledge Handbook of Food in Asia (2019). Her current project is on the global history of Hakka food.

Cecilia is a founding member of the editorial board for the journal Global Food History; member of the editorial board for Food, Culture and Society and member of the Bloomsbury Food Library Editorial Board. She is also board member for the US-based Association for the Study of Food and Society (ASFS) and serves on its committee on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.

Xinyi Lim (林心仪) (She/Her) - Head Chef at Cafe Freda and Founder of Megafauna

Xinyi Lim (林心仪) is a chef and food consultant based in Eora Country (Sydney, Australia). She cooks, writes, and experiments through her ongoing venture Megafauna, using food as an artistic tool for social justice, building community and the exploration of culture and heritage. Trained as a lawyer in Australia and more recently, a cook in New York, Xinyi is currently the head chef at Cafe Freda's, Sydney.

Rushani Epa (She/ Her) - Commissioning Editor at Hardie Grant and Editor-in-chief of Colournary

Rushani is an editor, journalist and critic who specialises in food and culture. She started Colournary in 2020, a digital and biannual print magazine that celebrates and amplifies the voices of First Nations, Black and People of Colour through the lens of food and culture. Through Colournary she supports emerging and established creatives and she strives to represent diversity in food media and believes food can break down boundaries between cultures. She also works as a commissioning editor at Hardie Grant Books where she publishes cookbooks and lifestyle books for a living. Previously, she worked for Time Out Melbourne as food and drink editor and a restaurant critic. She has also written for publications like Melbourne Food and Wine Festival, SBS Food and Acclaim Magazine.

All proceeds of the event go towards helping the Asian Australian Project build greater opportunities and events for the Asian-Australian Community.

ASIAN AUSTRALIAN PROJECT LTD is an official registered charity with the ACNC.