Lee Tran Lam: A Voice for Australia’s Culinary Narrative
We’ve followed Lee Tran Lam’s work as a defining force in Australian food journalism, where she merges cultural storytelling with incisive investigations into sustainability and identity. Her career spans 18 years, marked by a commitment to amplifying underrepresented voices and dissecting the socio-political layers of food systems.
Career Trajectory: From Blog to National Influence
Starting with her 2007 blog The Unbearable Lightness of Being Hungry, Lam transformed a personal passion into a platform that reshaped Sydney’s food discourse. By 2012, she expanded into podcasting with shows like Should You Really Eat That? for SBS, blending humor with hard-hitting topics like food waste and cultural appropriation. Her role as editor of New Voices on Food (2020) cemented her as a leader in diversifying food media, while her freelance work for Good Food and The Guardian showcases her versatility.
Key Articles and Impact
- The August Hit List: Raja, Ommi Don, Takam, and More (Resy, 2023) This monthly column highlights Sydney’s emerging eateries through a lens of cultural translation. At Raja, chef Ahana Dutt reimagines Bengali flavors with native Australian ingredients, a theme Lam explores by interviewing chefs about their migratory influences. The piece exemplifies her knack for framing restaurants as sites of diaspora storytelling, weaving historical context into dish descriptions. By profiling venues like Ommi Don (Japanese-Korean fusion), she underscores how migration policies shape culinary innovation.
- Visiting the oldest tea shop in Japan (SBS Food, 2024) Lam’s pilgrimage to Kanazawa’s 180-year-old Kineya Kojima teahouse becomes a meditation on preservation versus modernity. She details the shop’s refusal to automate matcha production, contrasting it with Tokyo’s robot-staffed cafes. Through interviews with fifth-generation owner Hiroko Kojima, Lam critiques the “Instagrammability” of food culture, arguing that true sustainability lies in intergenerational knowledge transfer. The article’s impact led SBS to commission a podcast miniseries on Asian tea traditions.
- Restaurant kitchens are so dependent on plastic... (The Guardian, 2023) “When Lennox Hastie banned cling film at Firedoor, his staff revolted by hiding rolls in the ceiling—until he started weighing bins to shame them into compliance.”
- This investigative piece exposed the hospitality industry’s plastic addiction through case studies like Hastie’s zero-waste steakhouse. Lam audited 12 Sydney kitchens, finding that 89% relied on single-use plastics for mise en place. Her methodology included waste audits and interviews with suppliers, revealing how convenience culture overrides environmental concerns. The article spurred Clean Up Australia to launch a “Plastic-Free Kitchens” certification program.
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Pitching Recommendations
1. Propose stories about immigrant chefs preserving heritage through local ingredients
Lam consistently highlights how chefs bridge their cultural roots with Australian ecosystems. Her Resy profile on Raja’s use of wattleseed in Bengali desserts demonstrates her interest in ingredient-driven narratives. Pitches should include specific examples of cross-cultural adaptation, like a Vietnamese baker using bush tomatoes in bánh mì.
2. Avoid celebrity chef profiles unless they intersect with systemic issues
While Lam has interviewed figures like Kylie Kwong, her focus remains on their activism (e.g., Kwong’s work with Indigenous communities). A pitch about a chef’s new TV show would need angles like its representation of migrant workers.
3. Highlight sustainability solutions beyond buzzwords
Her Guardian plastic exposé shows disdain for superficial “eco-friendly” claims. Successful pitches might explore how restaurants repurpose spent grain from breweries or collaborate with regenerative farms.
Awards and Achievements
- National Library of Australia Archival Selection (2021) Lam’s podcast The Unbearable Lightness of Being Hungry was preserved for its cultural significance, a rare honor for indie media. The NLA noted its “unparalleled documentation of Australia’s 21st-century food identity.”
- Time Out Sydney Future Shaper Award (2022) Recognizing her Diversity in Food Media initiative, which increased representation of BIPOC writers by 40% in partner outlets like Gourmet Traveller.
