Every Bite

Recreational beekeeping has experienced an incredible surge in recent years. However, this surge has coincided with the spread of varroa mites — a now-endemic parasite devastating Australian honeybee colonies. Whether beekeeping to harvest honey or to pollinate crops — for love or for profit — how can we mitigate the destructive impact of varroa mites going forward? Guests:  Cedar Anderson, co-fou...

Laurie Woolever had a front-row seat to both triumph and disaster in the lives of two giants of the American food scene: Anthony Bourdain and Mario Batali. Celebrity chef Batali faced allegations of sexual harassment at the height of the #MeToo movement and, by 2019, had exited all of his restaurants. Bourdain was a very different character: a celebrated chef at several New York institutions, a be...

Given how often we hear about hospitality's slim margins, transient workforce, and the ever-changing tastes and habits of diners, how does a restaurant stay the course? Marios in Melbourne seems to have cracked the code: this year it marks 40 years in business. Today, we pull up a chair at Marios and meet both new and long-standing members of staff, a regular customer of note, and the eponymous Ma...

Udon noodle making in Japan goes back 1,200 years, so when did Western Australia become one of its top suppliers of noodle wheat? Japanese udon noodles are serious business, with regional varieties of broth, toppings and preparation techniques inspiring fierce local pride. But wherever you are, there's a good chance the wheat comes from Australia. Today, we travel from the WA wheatbelt to the flou...

For ten years now, one of the most consistently lauded small restaurants in Australia has been Anchovy. It bills itself as Vietnamese cuisine "naturalised in Australia". Chef and co-owner Thi Le was born to a Vietnamese family in a Malaysian refugee camp and grew up in Sydney's West. She shares her story — and recipes — in Viet Kieu: Recipes remembered from Vietnam. Guest:  Thi Li, chef and co-own...

When discussing dietary fibre, it's easy to stray into awkward conversations about 'the other end' of eating. Thankfully, we have communicators like Dr Joanna McMillan to normalise these conversations about our nutritional health. Her new book, The Fibre Factor, explores how fibre has faded from the modern diet, and how not eating enough can have implications beyond healthy digestion. Guest:  Dr J...

When chef and restaurateur Stephanie Alexander published her Cook's Companion in 1996, she could not have known that it would become Australia's kitchen bible. An A to Z guide to ingredients, from abalone to zucchini, the book includes detailed explanations of varieties and seasons, as well as selection and storage tips, alongside a glossary of techniques and tools — everything a curious cook coul...

What would a birthday or a wedding be without cake? Celebration cakes are a signifier of occasion, sometimes requiring superhuman effort to bake and decorate. We explore the surprisingly recent history of the celebration cake, uncovering the role of the British royal family, The Australian Women's Weekly Children's Birthday Cake Book, and our evolving relationship with time itself. Guests:  Christ...

The chef behind Denmark's famous Noma restaurant is the latest hospitality figure to be accused of mistreating staff. It seems that many in the food industry too often face overwork, underpayment and intimidation in the workplace. It's a familiar story to Lucy Ridge, author of Fed Up: A Chef's Adventures in Food, Farming & Feminism. Burnt out, Lucy left the chef life behind and, with the help...

For Waleed Aly, refraining from food and drink from sunrise to sunset during Ramadan brings about not only a physical transformation but a spiritual one as well. Fasting is a feature of many different religions, and according to some experts, these and other religious practices can be determinants of health — both physical and mental. Guests: Waleed Aly, author, academic and presenter of Radio Nat...

Who doesn't love a passionfruit sponge, jam roly-poly or nice fluffy scone? Many of these classic recipes have been shared via community cookbooks, compiled by community groups and sold to raise funds for different causes and organisations. These books can become time capsules, revealing much about the social and political fabric of a community at a particular point in time. Guests: Liz Harfull, a...

Do you remember the healthy food pyramid? In the 1980s and 90s, the diagram was used to show which foods to eat most and which to eat least. It was replaced in Australia and the United States by a plate in the 2010s, but now — spurred by RFK Jr and the MAHA (Make America Healthy Again) movement — the pyramid is back. Sort of: it's now upside down. For the first time, the guidelines acknowledge the...

As a trained cellist, food writer and cook Gurdeep Loyal relies on music theory to amplify flavour. While he spends more time in the kitchen than in the string section these days, Gurdeep's first two cookbooks lean heavily on musical ideas, such as the flavour chords and triads that underpin all his recipes. Building on those concepts, his new cookbook, Flavour Heroes, takes fifteen underutilised...

While tasselled lanterns, weaving dragons, dancing lions and firecrackers are a familiar spectacle in Chinatowns right across Australia during Lunar New Year, the season is celebrated by more than just the Chinese community. In this episode, we explore the roots of Chinese New Year festivities in Australia, give the stove god some time off for Tết, Vietnamese New Year, and become older and wiser w...

The fresh air, clear waters and rich soil of regional Australia are encouraging some of the world's top chefs to trade in their chef whites for overalls and swap grand banquet halls for intimate dining rooms — including Analiese Gregory. She trained in Michelin-starred restaurants in Europe and now calls southern Tasmania home, where she'll soon be opening a 10-seat eatery on her property. But is...

A chant heard at Sydney's first Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras was "out of the bars, into the streets!" But bars were not the community's only gathering places: Even revolutionaries have to eat. We don't hear much about queer restaurants and cafes, but often they pre-date the famous nightspots that are now synonymous with queer pride.

After coming to prominence as a finalist on the Great British Bake Off, Ruby Tandoh is now a celebrated food writer, known for astute observations on how we eat and why. Her new book, All Consuming: Why We Eat the Way We Eat Now, is a deep-dive into the food culture of today — an era defined by novelty, abundance, and, paradoxically, scarcity: manufactured queues for trending foodstuffs. For those...

Doctors and scientists around the world are increasingly alarmed by the impact that industrial processing is having on the food we eat and by what that food does to our bodies. Ultra-processed foods may last longer and taste good, but our guests explain, many are designed for overindulgence, and they are linked to health problems like obesity and an increased risk of some cancers. This episode was...

The egg is an extraordinary thing. In the pantheon of miraculous food chemistry, it takes on a range of essential roles. From helping cakes and soufflés to rise, to bringing disparate ingredients and flavours into a unified whole. They can also take on a starring role, whether fried, scrambled or poached. Eggs frequently appear in art, literature, design, and philosophy, too, and they are at the h...

Many of us imagine that an athlete's diet consists of sports supplements providing carefully calibrated doses of carbohydrates, protein and electrolytes, but for ancient Olympians, a diet of cheese or figs was seemingly enough. In truth, whole foods are still the most important part of an athlete's diet today, as we discover on our culinary tour of the sporting world. This episode was originally b...

Salad is at the core of Hetty Lui McKinnon's culinary being. For many, salad is something at the margins of our food lives — an adornment, if not something to be avoided. What might that attitude deprive us of? Since launching her career in Sydney as a cook and the author of the bestseller Community, Hetty has since moved to the United States and is now a regular contributor to the New York Times....

While some might rely on a sachet of quick oats for their daily porridge fix, there are oat aficionados who will happily steam, roll, cut or grind their own. There's a world of flavour and texture to explore, and for the most accomplished out there, Scotland hosts an annual World Porridge Making Championship — The Golden Spurtle.  This episode was originally broadcast on August 9, 2025.

Our Christmas food traditions are richly varied, with history behind every dish. While some mainstays of the Christmas spread have endured for hundreds of years, other icons of the feast are far more recent additions. Tracing the history of Christmas eating tells a story of changing foodways across Australia and the world.

Perhaps the skill that best serves a professional chef is knowing how to make a great meal with what's at hand. Stocking a pantry and fridge with dependable and adaptable ingredients is at the heart of two new cookbooks: The latest from Alison Roman, Something from Nothing, and Masterchef-winner Nat Thaipun's debut, Thai: Anywhere and Everywhere.

We all have a shelf in our fridge or pantry of neglected condiments that we're unsure of what to do with — or whether we even like them. In this episode, help is at hand. Claire Dinhut, aka Condiment Claire, is a solutions-oriented flavour fiend, and in her quest for new taste sensations, she is not afraid to think outside the box.