Food & Culture: Take a Bao Podcast
Written by Jun Yi Loh
Food Writer & Founder of Take a Bao Podcast
Who am I?
I'm Loh Yi Jun, or Jun for short. I'm an Asian food writer based in Malaysia.
Both my parents and me are ethnically Chinese. My parents are both born in Malaysia and are Malaysian nationals; so are my grandparents except for my maternal granddad who's from China. I have lived in Malaysia for most of my life, in between studying at the University of Cambridge in the UK, culinary school in London and Paris, and then a 6-month stint at Blue Hill at Stone Barns in New York.
What was it like to take a culinary-related path and what did my family think?
It was definitely not something I expected to be doing even a year before getting into it. Because all my life, and my education had gone towards the more science-focused path—loving math and science, then doing chemical engineering for my degree and master's degree. While I did love all those things, after I switched into the culinary path, I discovered a creative, more freeing side of myself, and just never looked back!
My family was initially worried for my future, as is natural. Because to be fair, it is definitely tougher to find great success in the food world (well, based on society's general view of success anyway), and chefs are notoriously underpaid and overworked. So it was natural for my parents to have worried when I was working in the kitchen. But they saw my love and interest for it, and they gave me the freedom to pursue what I was truly driven by. And I'm truly grateful to have their support and backing in whatever it is I do.
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I never thought that culinary arts would lead me to where I am today! Initially I went into the culinary arts out of pure interest, which then developed into a deep love and adoration for food. Then, through it, it's just a whirlwind of finding out more intriguing aspects of food and food culture.
Right now, I'm back home in Malaysia, cooking and writing about Asian food, sharing funky recipes and food ideas through food magazines like Saveur and Food52, and also on my blog, Jun & Tonic. My latest project is starting a podcast about Asian food—Take a Bao!
“Take a Bao is a pun on ‘Take a Bow’, because besides the motivation mentioned above of wanting to push for better narratives and more exposure for Asian food culture and Asian food stories, I’m hoping to raise and uplift Asian food to the point that it’ll be able to hold its own and take a bow on the metaphorical food stage of the world.”
Why did I start the “Take a Bao” podcast? And why name it "Take a Bao"?
I fondly remember being hooked onto podcasts when I was studying abroad. Shows like Gastropod and Proof by America's Test Kitchen really captured my curiosity for food, and taught me so so much about food culture and food stories that I would otherwise have never known. Listening to Cynthia and Nicole from Gastropod squelch through cranberry bogs and debate on cilantro, I just thought, it'd be amazing if someone did this for Asian food!
I never thought years later, I'd be the one doing a podcast on Asian food! But I think in general, Asian food is still under-represented in the wider world of food (well, apart from Japanese sushi and Korean BBQ, maybe). So many gripping food stories and intriguing bits of food culture throughout the rest of Asia are just waiting to be told! I just hope to be able to tell a fraction of those stories, and do them justice – engaging and entertaining people about Asian food in a deeper, more meaningful way.
Episode Preview: Salted Egg
The reason I thought this'll make for a great episode is because salted egg is one of those things that we have in Asia, that isn't really that popular (yet!) with the rest of the world. If you've never heard of it, it's basically what it sounds like--eggs preserved in salt. But unlike the bottarga-like cured egg yolk that has permeated through Italian restaurants, these eggs are salted and preserved whole, in their shell. It has this deep umami-ness, that food writer Coral Lee, whom I interviewed on the podcast, puts eloquently: "It brings out the savouriness of sweet things and the sweetness of savoury things."
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And though it has existed for over a thousand years, salted egg hasn't seen much fanfare outside of certain cultural niches. But slowly, salted egg has been building hype in the past decade, from the traditional salted egg prawns and chicken in Chinese cooking, to salted egg baos (lau sha bao) popularized by Hong Kong dim sum spots, to the latest craze for salted egg fish skin chips in Singapore and Malaysia! And in this episode, I just packed it with fun little anecdotes and cultural significance, reminiscing about the spicy and gingery salted eggs of old, that you can't find much of anymore, and exploring why some salted egg places name themselves after Ultraman, a Japanese superhero of the 90s.
Hope you will enjoy listening to the episode!
