Lecker

Lucy Dearlove
Lecker
LECKER INTERVIEWS

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A podcast documenting cooking, eating and domestic life. Often recorded in kitchens. Produced and hosted by Lucy Dearlove lecker (German): delicious {adj} [food], tasty {adj}, mouth-watering {adj} Logo design by Holly Gorne

  1. Alex Renton on MSG (To Be Delicious bonus episode)

    1 DAY AGO · BONUS • SUBSCRIBERS ONLY

    Alex Renton on MSG (To Be Delicious bonus episode)

    The current Lecker series, To Be Delicious, is a collaboration with the writer and academic Anna Sulan Masing, all about MSG. We’re almost exactly at the halfway point of the series. Episode 1 saw Anna and I receive a Burmese feast at home from writer and activist MiMi Aye, and in episode 2 journalist and archivist Georgina Quach reflected on her Vietnamese heritage over instant noodles. Episode 3 comes out this Friday and documents a day Anna and I spent with Angela Hui and her mum Jin Tian in their South Wales hometown where we asked them about what it was like being at the frontline of MSG misinformation in their Chinese takeaway. So it seemed like a nice time to check in here and share something that sits alongside the series. While we were interviewing MiMi – someone who has long been a vocal advocate of MSG and who has also received abuse online for it – she mentioned an article which had been significant to her. In the early 2000s, finding mainstream chefs and food writers who would be willing to go on the record about their love of MSG wasn’t that common. But in 2005, investigative journalist Alex Renton published a piece in the Observer Food Monthly entitled “If MSG is so bad for you, why doesn’t everyone in Asia have a headache?” [Title not Alex’s, he told me, and taken from a Jeffrey Steingarten piece a few years previously.] Anna and I decided that it would be illuminating context to ask Alex about this piece, almost 20 years after it came out. The conversation, and available information around MSG has changed beyond recognition, and yet food myths still persist. People still believe it’s bad for you. Why? So I emailed Alex and asked whether he would be up for a conversation about some of the context around the article. He very generously agreed and we had a really interesting wide-ranging chat about it over the phone. There’s a small clip of this in episode 1 of the series, but there was so much more that he talked about that we just didn’t have room to get into there, and so I thought I’d publish a longer extract of it here.

    21 min
  2. Evolution Not Fusion

    5 DAYS AGO

    Evolution Not Fusion

    AKA infinite ways with a packet of instant noodles. Georgina Quach, a journalist and archivist, makes her personalised ramen for Anna and Lucy, and considers the importance of comfort in the food she makes, as well as how her Vietnamese heritage informs the savoury flavours she uses in her cooking. Chef and Chinese food creator Chin Taylor reflects on assumptions of how takeaway food is made and how they affect people's perceptions of the work that goes into it – and how MSG fits into this. Chef and author Tim Anderson talks about dashi, and fermentation expert and food scientist Dr Johnny Drain goes deeper on the science behind why umami is so important in a water-based cuisine like Japan's. And SongSoo Kim, head of sourcing and development at the restaurant group Super 8, talks about the complexity of umami. In To Be Delicious, Dr Anna Sulan Masing explores MSG - and more broadly umami - through the lens of East and South East Asian food heritage and diaspora food culture in the UK. From fritters to instant ramen, fermentation to takeaways, these five episodes open out the conversation around MSG and find a breadth of new ways for us to think about its usage within cooking, and its importance within cultural heritage. Credits: Hosted by @annasulan Produced by @dearlovelucy & @annasulan Original theme music by @midorijaeger Podcast artwork by @npl_illustration Additional music by Blue Dot Sessions. The series is completely editorially independent and was made possible, along with Anna's wider research, by support from the European Committee for Umami and Ajinomoto. Anna's book, Chinese and Any Other Asian: Exploring East and South East Asian Identity in Britain is out now! Order here.

    46 min

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4.5
out of 5
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About

A podcast documenting cooking, eating and domestic life. Often recorded in kitchens. Produced and hosted by Lucy Dearlove lecker (German): delicious {adj} [food], tasty {adj}, mouth-watering {adj} Logo design by Holly Gorne

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