Australian Taste Buds - Good or Bad?

As the cultural makeup of Australia has changed, so too, has its palate.

Where fusion food might once have been some sort of Asian cuisine presented with a European twist, today, you’re more likely to find a greater array of food - broken up Cheetos on a prawn and chorizo taco, anyone?

Image: Polina Tankilevitch

While weird combinations and strange concoctions on social media may be partly responsible for making the rounds of ‘food you should try’, for good or bad, food has changed. And what that ultimately means is anything goes.

How is our culture defining what we eat? Image: Tim Samuel

And that’s the premise behind Bad Taste, an SBS podcast that dissects what the Australian palate of today looks like, and why?

The series makes its way into Australian pantries and features interviews with expert eaters, farmers, researchers, and chefs who are curious about the same thing: Who defines what good food tastes like?

Jess Ho, the host of Bad Taste, was approached by producer Michelle Macklem after reading Ho’s Substack.

“After a few brainstorming sessions, we landed on Bad Taste,” she says of the podcast title and its themes.

“We knew it was going to be a big task, but it was still bigger than we planned for.”

Ho says Macklem’s experience was instrumental in putting the team together and distributing responsibilities.

“It’s food stories told by people from the diaspora, unashamedly catering to a BIPOC audience, and discussing topics that (in my experience) have been considered too difficult for traditional media,” says Ho.

In the series Ho takes a look at why Spam is so popular, you’ll find an episode on African Lasagne, the rise of fermentation and the likes of Kimchi, to a debate about whether instant noodles should be considered junk food, or a delicacy.

Last year, Bad Taste won the Signal Award – Food and Drink, and a silver for Best Factual Podcast at the 2022 Australian Podcast Awards, and was nominated as finalist in the 2022 Radio Today Awards.