Interview #186 — Yvonne C Lam
by Lee Tran Lam
Yvonne C Lam is the digital editor of Gourmet Traveller and a food writer who lives and works on Gadigal land (Sydney). Her work touches on race, representation and tasty things.
Yvonne C Lam spoke to Lee Tran Lam about the surprising ways her music education helped her career in food, the importance of covering meaty issues —COVID’s effect on Chinatown, problematic restaurant names—in a culturally sensitive way, and meeting her Grammy award-winning doppelganger.
Yvonne, when you were growing up, what were some memorable things you ate? And when did you first realise food could tell a story—that it was something more than just hunger-stopping fuel?
I grew up in Campsie in Sydney’s south-west, a suburb that’s experienced lots of ways of migration—Lebanese, Greek, Korean and Pasifika families, Chinese migrants, and now I’m pretty sure it has one of Australia’s fastest-growing Nepali populations. My local primary school, Harcourt Primary School—ask me to sing the school song, I’ll do it—was two blocks from my house, and it reflected the diversity of this neighbourhood.
I remember visiting the school at around four years old. I wasn’t a student there yet, and Mum took me to a food fair fundraiser held at the school. She handed me this clear plastic tray, and inside was a black, glossy cylinder that encased seasoned white rice, long-cut vegetables, a rolled omelette, and I very vividly recall the flavours of sesame and soy, the slightly stringy texture of the nori, the crunch and highlighter yellow of the pickled daikon. It was kimbap, and it was a revelation that I devoured slice by slice.
I mention the kimbap story for a couple of reasons. One, because when I did start kindergarten the next year, Mum learnt how to make it from the mum of one of my Korean classmates, and it became a special treat in my lunchbox. Two, because I remember unearthing the kimbap during one particular lunch and my classmates, as well as my white teacher, were jealous of my food. My teacher said if I gave him a piece he would give me a better grade, and to this day I’m not sure if he was joking.
Every ‘ethnic’ kid has a story of their lunch being stigmatised, but I love this memory because it runs counter to that. That my lunch, right then and there, was awesome, the source of culinary envy.
Though shortly afterwards I brought a rambutan to school, and everyone was like wtf, but I remember biting into it not giving a single fuck.
Your path to becoming a food journalist wasn’t always so obvious—you actually studied music. Did that education give you a perspective or unexpected skills that prove handy in your career today?
I feel weird about calling myself a food journalist because my perception of journalism is still very much coloured by foreign correspondents in flak jackets filing to-camera pieces in war-torn countries, or people who formally studied journalism or completed cadetships, neither of which I did.
I prefer to call myself a writer, because it’s to my mind a more forgiving job description. (There was one spell where I did attempt to wear the ‘journalist’ tag when describing my job to a family friend from Vietnam. I asked Mum how to say ‘journalist’ in Vietnamese and she said, ‘Huh? You’re not a journalist. Tell her you’re a writer.’ Mother knows best.)
I did a bachelor’s degree in classical music majoring in performance, and my instrument was percussion. A lot of people jokingly say, ‘So did you learn how to play triangle?’ and I’m always experimenting with ways of telling them that ‘yes, we actually did have fairly intensive triangle lessons’.
With percussion, you’ll never play just one instrument—you’ll hit a set of drums, dip some gongs in water, throw some bouncy balls on a vibraphone. It’s about multi-tasking, learning new techniques on the go, and refining them until you’ve fooled everyone else. Much like writing.
I remember reading about Kumi Taguchi likening her violin-playing to her journalistic practice, and I like how percussionists, who are always stuck at the back of the orchestra, have this vantage point of watching the rest of the musicians. As a percussionist, you also spend large parts of your time quietly waiting, listening, and observing, before making a racket at the loudest allowable decibel. Which I guess is also like writing.
Tell us about the pivotal work experience episode that eventually led you to Broadsheet?
In high school I did a week’s work experience at Drum Media, a free street music mag that I worshipped, where I’d read the ‘seeking drummers’ classifieds and imagine myself in a band that would make it big, and run my fingers over the live music ads at over-18 venues: The Hopetoun, Strawberry Hills Hotel, The Gaelic Club. The editor of the publication was a woman called Sarah Norris who oversaw a rag-tag ensemble of grungy male music writers with facial hair and dark-rimmed glasses who debated which was the best Smashing Pumpkins album. Our careers advisor said it’d be a nice idea to bring a thank-you gift on the last day, and I took her advice to heart. I came in with a bag of banana lollies, and an instant camera where I insisted on taking photos with every staff member as if I’d been working there for five years rather than five days.
Years later, when I dipped my toe in the food-writing freelance world, I remember coming across Sarah’s byline in Broadsheet. She was the Sydney editor. On a whim, I emailed her saying, ‘Do you remember me? I’m that weirdo from Year 10 work experience. We have a photo of us standing underneath an Eskimo Joe poster. We’re both wearing bootleg jeans.’ To my surprise, she emailed back—she’d been moving that week, and had come across that very photo in her archives of things—and asked me to come in for a chat. That’s how I got my start writing, and eventually doing some editing work, with Broadsheet, and it was without a doubt one of the biggest leg-ups I had into food writing where I was thrown into the deep end of commissioning and planning editorial content. The lesson is unbridled enthusiasm and nerdiness can get you places, even if it takes 13 years to pay off.
Today, you’re the digital editor for Gourmet Traveller and you also regularly write long features for the magazine. One key change I’ve noticed is that your byline has morphed from Yvonne Lam to Yvonne C Lam, which made me wonder about the other Yvonne Lam doppelgangers out there and what led to that change? (I notice there’s an Yvonne Lam who is a Grammy-award-winning violinist and wonder if that could’ve been the parallel-universe you if you’d kept up with your music!)
Anyone who hasn’t Googled their name is a liar, and my world came crashing down in high school when I realised there was already a much more successful Yvonne Lam in the world who had not only stolen my name, but my aspirations of being the only musically famous Yvonne Lam in existence.
I actually met the Yvonne Lam in question in 2012. (I know the rule is you should never meet your idols, but to my knowledge, there’s nothing in the rulebook about what to do with meeting your name doppelgangers?) She’s a member of Eighth Blackbird, an excellent contemporary music ensemble based in Chicago, and we were on the bill for the Melbourne Metropolis New Music Festival. Our lives were, in many ways, eerily similar—she, too, is the child of Chinese-Vietnamese migrants, and the middle child of three sisters. I don’t remember much else about the conversation, other than I was in awe of her talent, her modesty, her down-to-earth nature, and that when she auditioned to be part of Eighth Blackbird, one of the interview questions they asked her was, ‘Tell us the dirtiest joke you know.’
Yvonne Lam the violinist also has a strong SEO game, and when I started getting more writing work I decided to adopt the middle initial ‘C’ so my name wouldn’t get muddled up with hers. The ‘C’ stands for ‘coral’, which is part of my Chinese name. I also like the way it looks next to ‘Lam’. Yvonne Clam. Snappy.
At Gourmet Traveller, you’ve worked on some of the most memorable food writing of recent times. Can you tell me what inspired your story on Chinatown institutions trying to survive COVID-19 lockdown? And has it been challenging to write about Asian restaurants in relation to COVID? I remember you having to take a lot of care and sensitivity when covering your Tan Viet story about the experience of being a COVID-affected venue.
It happens more than often not that I think of a story idea, expect it to have already been covered in food media, and to be surprised that it hasn’t. The story about Sydney’s Chinatown was one of them. There were small 500-worders in a couple of mainstream news publications, but nothing I could sink my teeth into that chronicled the devastation wrought upon food businesses in the precinct by COVID-19 and its evil sibling, dog-whistling xenophobia.
With stories like Chinatown, with stories like Vietnamese restaurant Tan Viet, my concern was early on that my cultural background—I’m Chinese Vietnamese—would be leveraged as criticism against my writing. That my writing would be biased towards my subjects, that I wouldn’t be objectively reporting on what was happening. But now I’ve reconciled myself with the fact that my heritage, my life as the child of refugees to Australia, my funny lunchbox experiences of my childhood and my less fun work microwave experiences of my adulthood, these fragments of my life are not blemishes on my writing integrity. These experiences give me a perspective that many other white food writers simply do not possess.
You also wrote about the debate over ‘authenticity’ in food. What surprised you about reporting on that piece?
It surprised me that an essay on that subject matter hadn’t already been written in Australian food media. Discussions about the fallacy of authenticity are not new in publications in the States and in the UK; they’re certainly not new in academic publications.
After being warned by a fellow, well-meaning food writer (whose work I really look up to) that chefs are clumsy at articulating their thoughts about authenticity, it surprised me how many chefs and restaurants owners were willing to go on the record about it; how articulate and eloquent they were about thoughts and feelings that had clearly been processed, ruminated and turned over in their heads after years in the industry; and although there was a … discontent about the whole damn thing brewing under the surface, all the people I spoke with took it upon themselves, and their businesses, to prove that Chinese and Thai food doesn’t have to be stuck in time; that through food an Afghan family can reclaim the narrative of their homeland; that Mexican food for a tough-as-nails chef from Mexico City can be whatever she damn well wants it to be.
It surprised me too that my parents, who had interrupted schooling and for whom English is their fourth (Mum's) and fifth (Dad's) language, understood completely what my story was about. And that filled me with more joy than words can describe.
You also wrote about the loaded nature of restaurant names—particularly if they reinforce racist stereotypes. What inspired this story and what was the response like?
For anyone who’s read the story (and thank you, if you have), it might come as a surprise that the trigger to writing the story was seeing a press release for a restaurant called Madame Nhu—perhaps the least inflammatory case study of the story—land in my inbox. Madame Nhu, real name Trần Lệ Xuân, was the de facto first lady of South Vietnam in the ‘50s and ‘60s, and all I knew was that she was a Bad Woman in History. I got in touch with one of the owners, Minh Nguyen—himself a refugee of South Vietnam—asking if he’d be interested in sitting down and explaining his reasoning for naming a Vietnamese restaurant after such a polarising figure in history. I did not expect the nuanced, informed and intelligent one-hour conversation about the restaurant name, about how the main complaints about the business name came from what Minh described as ‘white armchair historians’, and how for many in the Vietnamese community, Madame Nhu is remembered fondly for the various causes she championed. I can’t say I 100 per cent agree with some of Nguyen’s reasoning, but what I did admire was how he fronted and explained himself with a humbleness, openness and eloquence when it came to the prickly questions.
I did not experience this with some other restaurant owners I approached. As a writer, you want to give your subjects the benefit of the doubt and to put your hypotheses up to be tested. Unfortunately, my interactions with restaurants like Sum Yung Guys told me my intuition was right, and as I describe in the story, it’s perhaps the most egregious example of everything a restaurant name, design and menu shouldn’t be, especially if the owners are taking and profiting off food cultures that are not their own. And they're not the only ones.
Responses? They were everything I expected and more. I was fortunate not to receive any trolls in my direct messages nor my inbox (because for a writer of colour writing about race not to be harassed is the standard we’re striving for in society these days), though the comments on Gourmet Traveller’s social media were lazy, unengaged and predictable. There was a snoozy reaction op-ed by a Newscorp columnist, to which many people said, ‘if you’re pissing off Newscorp, you’re probably doing something right.’ I’d been accused, too, of destroying small businesses who were struggling through COVID, as if a pandemic gives licence to racism, and of having a persecutory agenda against very nice white owners, but I don’t really care for this sort of criticism.
What I do care for is the readers of colour for whom this work resonated, who told me they did fist-pumps while reading the story, who told me it articulated everything they’ve recently felt about problematic restaurants and their problematic names. The story is not about me, but it’s about showing there is a real hunger in Australia amongst food-media readers for real, deep and considered stories about race and representation and food, and how their messy worlds intersect.
You’re one of a few on-staff food writers who is also a person of colour. You’re also a member of Diversity In Food Media. Why is diverse representation in food important to you?
Food is the ultimate consumable object. We put it in our mouths, and to an extent, we eat it with our eyes and ears, we share it on social media. The danger is when we lose the stories of the people, bodies and stories behind food, particularly food that belongs to people of colour. When food is flattened into a product of capitalism and not of culture is when diners eat a bowl of phở in an ersatz simulation of community togetherness without paying heed to the migrant hands that stirred their broth, picked their herbs and washed their bean sprouts. You can like ‘ethnic’ food and still be racist. The two are not mutually exclusive.
Jenny F Zhang has a powerful piece in Eater, where amidst the rise of hate crimes towards the Asian American community she wrote, ‘Americans may love Chinese food, but they don’t love the people who make it. They treat Chinatowns like playgrounds, their residents like backdrops for photos. They reach for the products of Chinese labor and with the same hands knock them down on the street.’ Her essay is striking for the way that it lays bare the faultlines in society, and food media, that divide Bodies and Food; and for the way that only an Asian American could have written this.
I feel like with discussions about race, representation and food, Australian food media treads with a great deal of trepidation and tradition. It could be because in the newsrooms of many digital publications, the writers who hold positions of power, and who make the editorial decisions, are white. I can think of only a handful of writers in senior editorial positions like me who are people of colour, and that certainly affects not just what, but also how stories are told. It’s why I’m proud to be with Diversity in Food Media with you Lee Tran, and with our colleagues, because we’re a collective of writers who think alike, and the battle seems a bit smaller each time in the newsroom when you know you have the backing of writers whose work you love and admire. And it's important that the work I do from a position of power is meaningful and impactful now, so it's easier for the next generation to have their stories told, and their voices heard.
And if anything, having a broader racial diversification of writers in food media mean you’ll get things—simple things, like you know, facts—right. You won’t get curry recipes described as ‘stews’, you won’t find read stories that say the Japanese word for seaweed is ‘nori’, you won’t be told that Australian audiences aren’t ready for X cuisine. What will happen is that stories about food will be told with nuance, with sensitivity, with accuracy. We lose nothing, and gain everything, by ensuring voices of minority groups are represented in food media.
Tell us about Dragonfruit, the band you’re in with fellow Diversity In Food Media member Colin Ho! Does the music degree feel like it’s finally come in handy at last?
Colin and I met over lunch with mutual friends at one of my favourite restaurants in Sydney, Ho Jiak in Haymarket. I remember the way he poured the table water, with his spare hand raised high like a waiter hoisting a plate, almost as a counterweight to the water bottle, and the way he so seamlessly slipped in a Cantonese phrase, 飛象過河, fēi jeuhng gwo hòh, to describe dining etiquette. You don’t forget friend origin stories like that.
We started jamming at Colin’s place, though to call them ‘rehearsals’ is pretty generous. We have this tendency to schedule rehearsals right on lunchtime, and after bumping in one of us will turn to the other and say, ‘Have you eaten yet?’ We’ll spend the next hour or two cooking dumplings and drinking beer, realise we actually should do twenty minutes’ or so of playing so we can say we did, then feel worn out from all the carbohydrates.
We’ve played as the house band for a Lunar New Comedy gig hosted by our talented friend, writer, reporter and comedian Jennifer Wong; she also asked us to write the theme music for her ABC TV series Chopsticks or Fork?, which explores Chinese restaurants in regional Australia. Just these friendships and experiences alone are worth my music degree.
Do you have any advice for emerging food writers? For writers of colour, seek to have your work edited by an editor of colour. Eat broadly. Read everything. Never stop writing.
Who are you inspired by?
The people in the weekly writers’ club I’m part of—a collective of writers of colour, not just food writers, but fiction writers, essay writers, journalists, designers, artists and photographers—where very little writing is done, but lots of food, drink and war stories are shared.
What are you reading?
After a fairly intense, emotionally draining reading list that included Alexander Chee’s How to Write an Autobiography, Cathy Park Hong’s Minor Feelings, and Han Kang’s The Vegetarian, I’m working my way through the simple, pure, bucolic goodness of The Hobbit.
How do you practice self-care?
My great friend and band member Colin Ho once told me, ‘The greatest act of self-love is cooking a meal for yourself.’ I think about this every day. Self-care to me is preparing a bowl of something hot, wet and sloppy—noodle soups, congee, dhal—and eating it while I sit cross-legged on the floor.
What does being Asian-Australian mean to you?
It’s taken me a long time to reckon with, embrace and lean into my Asian-ness, instead of diminishing it as a punchline for white folk. It means surrounding myself with kindness and love from Asian-Australian friends, creating safe spaces for Asian Australians to share their stories of war and success, to lift each other up, and to let others catch you when you’re coming down. It means recognising that Asian Australians are stronger when we lift up other marginalised communities too, other people of colour, First Nations communities, the queer community, the disabled community, and continuing to care for our elders. What does being Asian Australian mean? I’m not entirely sure, but I really like it.
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Interview by Lee Tran Lam
Photographs by Teresa Tan