Khanh Ong is the first to admit he's not so good in the wild. The MasterChef fan favourite is a city boy. He likes fashion and music and late nights. But his first love is food and it's this very thing that takes him out of his comfort zone in his first cooking series.
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Khanh Ong's Wild Food is a brand new, 10-episode cooking series exploring Australia's wild side. He travels the country, from Far North Queensland to Tasmania, meeting local producers, learning about native ingredients with a side of adventure thrown in for good measure.
"This has been the best experience ever," says Ong.
"Not only did I get to travel to some places I'd never been but I got to try all the most amazing ingredients and have all these new experiences."
From diving for abalone, to hunting mud crabs with spears, to foraging for native salad ingredients, Ong said he couldn't wait to shoot each new episode.
He's one to base his travels around food.
"The majority of my travelling is all centred around food, I pick locations near good markets where I can check out local ingredients, even choose a destination based on its cuisine, it's the best way to travel."
Ong was born in an Indonesian refugee camp and came to Australia in the 1980s with his Vietnamese parents. He was keen to learn more about parts of the country he hadn't been but also about the people.
"A lot of Wild Food for me was working out what Australia represents, it's such a melting pot of cultures," he says.
"I did a welcome to country with Nywaigi man Buddy Cassidy in the first episode and that was really special, learning about his people and their connection to the land.
"We went hunting for magpie geese and tried to fish and made the most amazing damper using bananas where we buried it in the ground. That was a really cool day.
"When I'm hunting and foraging for Indigenous ingredients with these amazing people who've been using them for thousands of years and then getting to put my spin on things, imparting a little bit of my Vietnamese heritage, or techniques I've picked up over the years, it's such a great way to combine it all."
Food has a way of breaking down barriers, in this sense, he says. The whole point of cooking is about sharing and bringing people, even cultures, together.
Whether he's cooking pasta with prawns fresh off the boat, or barbecuing wild deer over an open fire, there's a sense of generosity through the whole series.
Some of the destinations he visits include Far North Queensland, Port Lincoln and the Eyre Peninsula in South Australia, and Central Gippsland and Mallacoota in Victoria.
At Eyre Peninsula he goes diving with sharks in one of the most memorable scenes.
"It was the scariest thing. I could see the sharks before I got in the water but, weirdly, once I was in the cage it was kind of serene. There were big schools of fish swimming in unison, it was kind of calming, and then they'd disappear quickly and you knew the sharks were on the way.
"It really shook me being that close to the sharks."
He says, however, he always felt safe during the series, from the shark cage, to diving for abalone, to hunting for wallaby or wild deer.
"So many people I met have been doing this for years, for generations, and to be able to learn from them was one of the best things about the series. Spending some time with Grant Shortland, diving for abalone, he just knew the area like the back of his hand, he was so knowledgeable and I felt so comfortable and safe.
"Abalone is something that we cook a lot with our Vietnamese cuisine and I bought some back for my mum and she was so, so excited."
Ong first appeared on season 10 of MasterChef in 2018 and then again on MasterChef: Back to Win in 2020. He's published a book, A Gay Guy's Guide to Life, Love, Food (Plum, $34.99) and won more hearts on Survivor: Blood and Water in 2022.
"This series is like a pinch me moment for me," he says. "It's something I've wanted to do for years, to have a cooking, travel, adventure show where I can learn things along the way and it's amazing that the first season is here in my backyard."
Are there more destinations he'd like to explore? "If I could do this for the rest of my life I'd be a happy man," he says. "It's such an honour to travel and meet people and connect over food."
- Khanh Ong's Wild Food premieres on SBS Food on Sunday, April 30, at 8.30pm and is also available on SBS On Demand.
Karen Hardy
I've covered a few things here at The Canberra Times over the years, from sport to education. But now I get to write about the fun stuff - where to eat, what to do, places to go, people to see. Let me know about your favourite things. Email: karen.hardy@canberratimes.com.au
I've covered a few things here at The Canberra Times over the years, from sport to education. But now I get to write about the fun stuff - where to eat, what to do, places to go, people to see. Let me know about your favourite things. Email: karen.hardy@canberratimes.com.au
