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 could need. Now 85 years old, Stephanie Alexander says the new 30th anniversary edition of the book will be her final revision.

Guest: 

• Stephanie Alexander, chef and writer

Get in touch:

We'd love to hear from you! Email us at [email protected]

This episode of Every Bite was produced on the lands of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation.

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: 

• Christopher Thé, founder of Black Star Pastry and Hearthe, author of Modern Australian Baking
• Alysa Levene, food historian and author of Cake: A Slice of History
• Pamela Clark, co-author of The Australian Women's Weekly Children's Birthday Cake Book
• KC Hysmith, food writer and historian

The interview with Pamela Clark was recorded by Tall Story Films.

This episode was originally broadcast on June 7, 2025.

Get in touch:

We'd love to hear from you! Email us at [email protected]

This episode of Every Bite was produced on the lands of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation.

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 of women farmers and makers, forged a path towards a more meaningful relationship with food and feeding.

Guests: 

• Lucy Ridge, food writer, former chef, author of Fed Up: A Chef's Adventures in Food, Farming & Feminism
• SJ Pienaar, owner and head cheesemaker at Second Mouse Cheese Co

Get in touch:

We'd love to hear from you! Email us at [email protected]

This episode of Every Bite was produced on the lands of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation.

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 National's The Minefield
• Doug Oman, professor at the University of California, Berkeley and editor of Why Religion and Spirituality Matter for Public Health

Get in touch:

We'd love to hear from you! Email us at [email protected]

This episode of Every Bite was produced on the lands of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation.

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, author of Tried, Tested and True: Treasured recipes and untold stories from Australia's community Cookbooks
• Sheralee Menz & Marieka Ashmore, 'Those Barossa Girls', authors of Rolling Up Their Sleeves: The Recipes and the Women Behind the Barossa Cookery Book

This episode was originally broadcast on July 19, 2025.

Get in touch:

We'd love to hear from you! Email us at [email protected]

This episode of Every Bite was produced on the lands of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation.

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 harm caused by ultra-processed foods. So why are some dietitians critical of the new pyramid? And what can Australians expect from our own updated guidelines, due later this year?

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 pantry items and builds a repertoire of meals, snacks and sweets around each one.

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 with a bowl of tteokguk, an essential dish during Seollal, Korean New Year.

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 her homegrown, hyper-local approach a reaction against her formal training or a product of it?

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.