I'm nearly at the top of Mount Lofty here in Adelaide
to meet one of my favourite cooks.
He's a TV writer, presenter and culinary wonder,
but that's just the beginning.
Thoughtful, eloquent and refreshingly provocative,
let's spend the day with Adam Liaw.
And who should I find standing alone on the hill.
(LAUGHS) Hello! How are you?
Very well. Very well.
Such a pleasure to finally have you on the show.
Adam, look at this!
Adelaide. Welcome to Adelaide. My home.
One day all of this will be yours. (LAUGHS)
You grew up in Adelaide but, of course, you're not from here -
you're from Malaysia.
Yeah, so I was born in Georgetown, which is on the island of Penang
and I think we came here when I was about 2 or 3 years old.
Do you have brothers and sisters?
Yeah, I've got an older brother, uh, a younger sister,
two older step sisters, one young... another younger sister,
another young half-brother as well.
So there's a few of us.
It's the Brady Bunch. Yes.
But when you first came here to Australia,
how many brothers and sisters?
Just me... Uh, actually just me and my brother,
because my sister was born here.
And so why did your parents, uh, Lin and Joyce, want to come to Australia?
Why did they want to leave Malaysia?
Gosh, I've never heard them referred to as Lin and Joyce before.
That's their names, isn't it? It is, it is.
It is, yeah. It is. Mr and Mrs, Doctor and Doctor.
No, but my parents divorced at a... well, when I was quite young,
so I've never really... I've never thought of them as a couple.
Did they come here, you know, with that migrant dream
that a lot of migrants have, which is it will be better?
There will be more opportunity for kids?
Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, that's...
Every migrant comes here not because they like the food or whatever.
They come here for opportunity. They come here for...
No, that's true. (LAUGHS)
They don't come to Australia because they like the food.
Well, there's been many T intersections in your life, Adam.
Let's see how many we can squash into one day, shall we?
Let's do it.
Oh. Don't tell me this is your car?
Isn't it beautiful? It is magnificent.
Was this your car?
No, no, this was probably my earliest memory of a family car.
We had lots of different cars all through my childhood,
but this is one of the most memorable.
And back in, I guess, the '80s. When we were driving one of these,
it was pretty much the least cool car you could be associated with.
Are you happy to drive? Absolutely.
And find our way? Yes.
Alright, let's get going.
It's been a long time since I've driven one of these.
Actually, maybe never.
(BOTH LAUGH)
♪ Jump in my car
♪ I wanna take you home
♪ Jump in my car
♪ It's too far to walk on your own. ♪
Adam Liaw is a television presenter, writer and cook.
He was working as a lawyer in Japan
when he entered MasterChef Australia,
winning a grand final watched by more than 4 million people.
As host of Destination Flavour and via social media,
he's become one of the most exciting new voices
in the local food industry.
I just... I can't get over all the, you know,
the knobs and the buttons and the bristles on the gear lever.
This is all the stuff I remember.
So, I know you've spoken about these things before,
but I'm just gonna say them to you
and you just tell me why you don't like them.
Yep. Gourmet doughnuts. Discuss.
(LAUGHS)
What's wrong with a cinnamon doughnut?
Agree.
A freshly-fried, hot cinnamon doughnut...
Yes.
There is no better doughnut than that.
So why would you want to stuff it with salted caramel
or glaze it with all kinds of things or put sprinkles on top of it?
It just doesn't make any sense to me.
Bircher muesli.
Soggy, day-old muesli.
(LAUGHS)
It's basically muesli soaked in juice.
You've just taken carbs, added a bunch of sugar to it
and then you're calling it healthy.
It's the hypocrisy. It's the hypocrisy he doesn't like.
That's the main problem.
It's a sometimes food that we are, uh,
we're considering an everyday food.
Is this the road? Yeah, I think so.
It is! I hope so.
Did I get it right? You did. We're already here.
And is it... Does it look the same? Does the area look the same?
Not at all. It looks kind of posh, actually.
Oh, he's doing a big turn now, everyone, to get up this driveway.
Oh, it looks smaller than it did.
But still, I remember having it.
I got a motorbike for my 8th birthday
and I remember nearly killing myself coming down this driveway.
A motorbike for your 8th birthday? What were they thinking?
How fabulous!
It's gorgeous! Wow! This was...
I would not have been here for more than 30 years now.
30 years!
What are you expecting to find when you get in there?
Lots of changes? (LAUGHS) I have no idea.
I'm actually a bit discombobulated by the whole experience.
I kind of feel like I'm coming in the back door,
'cause we always used to enter from, I guess, the carport over there.
The other side.
This is totally different. Totally different.
In what way?
Well, this used... this used to be two rooms.
There was a big... That was my parent's bedroom there.
This was kind of the big living room.
I think there was probably a wall here, maybe.
Maybe.
Am I wrong?
And so who lived in this house?
This.. I think this is the second house that we owned
when we moved to Australia.
So it was me, Mum... Me, Mum, Dad, brother, sister and my grandma.
Were there any smells associated with this house in terms of cooking?
My grandma did almost all the cooking
'cause my parents are both working full time.
I remember two things very specifically -
ham and cheese sandwiches after school.
Yeah, fried rice as well.
And I always used to have my fried rice with tomato sauce,
because I think it just is... I still do, actually.
(LAUGHS)
This is the...
This is the part of the house I think I remember the most.
I always remember... I don't think it was the same staircase back then,
because in the corner was a little fish pond.
And where was your brother's room and your room?
Yeah, we were down here. Down here.
This was our bedroom.
And there was a little pot belly stove in the corner there.
Aw!
Well, it gets really cold up here
and so there was the pot belly stove down here
and then I remember we had a kerosene stove.
'Cause it was a kerosene stove and it had bars on it
and I'd get out of the shower, as a little kid,
and just try to warm my butt up against the stove.
And I remember getting too close and it seared bar lines into my butt.
Are they there to this day, Adam? (LAUGHS)
I haven't looked recently, but I'm assuming they're gone.
Every time I see you sear a piece of steak from now on
on your cooking shows, I'm going to think of that.
And my grandma was here.
Actually, yeah, quite a lot of this part of the house is still original.
Oh, my goodness. (LAUGHS)
It's a LEGO room now! It's a LEGO room now!
I'm gonna be in here all day!
Oh, no! This is brilliant!
Has this been set up? Because... (LAUGHS) No.
See you later, Julia. (BOTH LAUGH)
That's it? Enough. Filming's over.
And what are you going to build? This is amazing.
I'll show you something here.
This is the most terrifying thing of my childhood, is that bamboo.
Oh, why is that?
Yeah, I was actually almost too scared to come into this room
because of that bamboo.
There's an old kind of folk tale
of a witch who lives in the top of the bamboo.
Seems a little odd now but with very, very long nipples,
to strangle children if they're misbehaving.
So, I remember, like, this... this is the part of the house here
where if I ever had to walk through here as a little kid
I would have been Usain Bolt going through this little play area
because I was terrified of this bamboo.
Let's go in the backyard. Yeah.
Yeah, this was the driveway.
You used to drive in here, park there.
The Volvo would have been parked right in there.
Volvo underneath.
I would have lived my entire life in this pool.
I remember having competitions with Dad
with how long you could hold your breath.
And he used to wear glasses at that point,
so every time Dad got in the pool here, he'd take his glasses off,
throw them into the pool and then dive into the pool to get them.
I will always remember that. (LAUGHS)
We had a vegetable garden back there and a chicken coop.
Was your grandmother cooking the chickens that were there
or were they for eggs?
I don't know if I want to... Is it legal to slaughter a chicken?
Because she did. She would, uh...
Well, it's another time and another place.
It was for eggs, mainly,
but then when they reached the end of their time...
My grandma always liked the flavour of older chickens.
You know, young chickens are very tender,
but they don't have a lot of flavour to them,
so she'd always like the older chickens
and she'd boil those for stocks and things.
So, that's interesting, isn't it?
Even as a kid, there's kind of a pattern there
of you know where the stuff comes from.
I think it's important.
You know, if you've only ever eaten meat from a supermarket
and you've only ever eaten vegetables
that are wrapped in plastic, you lose...
It's immediate.
You know, you lose such connection to your food within a generation.
And how many years were you here?
That's the thing that blows my mind a little bit.
You know, we would have only been here 3 years, 4 years.
And why does that blow your mind? You thought you were here longer?
Well, I mean this is... this is my childhood here,
because I have so many memories of being here.
But to think all of those memories
were just in that tiny, tiny little period of time.
So your parents divorced when you were eight.
Yes. What happened next?
So my Dad... left from this house.
I remember actually saying goodbye to him just out there.
Ohh. When he went.
But he moved to the country. We moved to Whyalla.
My mother and I moved with my brother and sister, etc.
She re-married a few years later and then with my stepdad
she moved to New Zealand when I was 14.
Right.
And at that stage I was... I was in year 11 at school
and so I didn't want to go to New Zealand
and finish my schooling then
because back then it was sort of a two year matriculation from school.
So you had your scores from year 11 and year 12,
so I didn't want to disrupt, I guess, my schooling at that point
so I stayed here and finished school.
So you settled with your grandmother.
Is your brother there as well? Is Aaron there too?
Yeah, he was there at the same time. So we both left.
My brother would have been 16 at that age. I was 14.
And he was... at that stage he was I think already in second year uni
because he was a bit of a brainiac. OK.
Your brother being at uni at 16, possibly in second year,
you're 14, you're about to fin...
We'll talk about that when we get to the school
because everyone might be going, "How does that work? He's a genius!"
But there you are, you know, with your... with your grandmother
and your brother is there too and sometimes she is there
and sometimes she isn't and you're looking after yourselves.
You know, she was living in Australia
but she'd spend half the year in Malaysia,
and so my brother and I were not fending for ourselves
but, you know, we had lots of family friends and things
who would come over and drop off food.
So there would have been a freedom here.
Did the freedom overwhelm you or did you love the freedom to a degree?
I guess with that amount of freedom I could have gotten into drugs
and dropped out of school and done whatever, but I didn't,
and wanted to finish school and get a good job and have an education.
So that's...
I guess your parents put in the hard work in the early years
to give you that kind of perspective
when you're out there doing it by yourself.
I was still a kid, though.
Like, I remember, you know...
I think with the lack of parental guidance
I think I'd watched an extremely scary movie by myself at one point
and then I was coming home from school and the house was...
It just looked terrifying inside.
I was just scared shitless and I sat outside for about 10 minutes
and I was like, this is ridiculous.
It's only gonna get darker and it...
And so I just remember I went in and...
Turned on all the lights.
Yeah, turned on all the lights and fell asleep watching the TV.
You sound like it was a choice for you in a way, though,
to go, look, I think I will stay here to finish school,
but were there ever any moments
where you felt a little bit abandoned?
I mean, I would be lying if I said I wasn't.
Because you go from...
At that stage I was living with my mum, my stepdad,
there were seven of us kids under the one roof at that point
and then you go from that, which is, you know,
it is like living in a circus.
You open the door and people are doing back flips
and you're allowed to have a shower for 90 seconds
because you're gonna run out of hot water.
You're sharing a room with your two brothers.
To go from that to essentially a whole house
that you're too scared to go into because you watched a horror movie,
it was certainly a massive change
and I'm not gonna say I enjoyed it all the time
but I still think it was the right thing to do.
So every guest brings someone to talk to.
Well, nearly every guest.
But today we're gonna be talking to your dad.
Yeah. So shall we go and find him?
Let's do it.
Oh. Here's my dad, Lin.
Hello! Hi, Dad.
Oh, these two.
Hello, Lin.
How great to meet you.
Lovely to meet you too.
What a story already.
He told us a terrific story about you used to get in the pool,
you'd throw your glasses in and dive in to get the glasses.
Is that what you did?
That was one of the tricks, yeah. One of the tricks.
What was another trick?
But then the real trick is this guy when he was young, he loves the pool
and he might be darkish now but he was literally black
when he was a kid.
I want to know about the motorbike. Yes.
Because when I was eight, for my birthday,
right here, you guys gave me a little Peewee 50 motorbike,
and when I got it, the very first time I rode it straight down there
and straight into that fence there.
I just think it's crazy.
Like, why would you buy a child of eight a motorcycle? I loved it.
Well, firstly, I think the bike was going for a bargain,
so... Chinese cannot resist bargains.
So secondly, Adam actually is a very well-coordinated child.
Oh, you were very well-coordinated. That's good to know.
So I didn't have too much reservations about him
going on a bike.
And you're a doctor. You could fix him.
Maybe.
So Lin, why did you move to Adelaide?
Why did you choose Adelaide as the place to come?
Most pressing reason was I have two kids that are showing some signs
that they are a bit advanced for their age,
so I thought I should really give them somewhere
where they have optimum sort of capacity to develop.
How did you know that Adam and Aaron were showing signs
of being maybe a bit more advanced?
How did you tell?
I think it was more Aaron than me
and then I just rode on the coat tails.
Well, Aaron was one of those kids who we were reading him ABCs
and then he learned the alphabet by himself at the age of 10 months
and he was reading at the age of 18 months, two years by himself,
and this fella was not far behind.
So we had really no choice. Oh, I see.
So, Lin, what did you think Adam would be when he grew up?
What did you want him to be?
I have never imposed those restrictions on them
and I was pleased when he did law
and I was pleased that he did a double degree,
and when he did MasterChef
I thought this pretending to be a chef might be a short-lived event.
But I'm glad it is going on, so... Yep.
And he is enjoying it so I am pleased for him.
There's a lovely moment, actually, in the final of MasterChef
when Adam's won and they try to interview the family,
you're there and your grandmother's there,
and they're trying to interview and at one point
you say to the camera, "This is my time now, I need to hug my son."
And you actually go in and go... You own the time.
It was emotional. Oh, I can imagine.
And I am a great choker, so...
You're one of the great chokers of the world. I love that.
I love that. I do.
Well, Lin, we're so thrilled you were able to join us today.
Thank you, Lin. You are welcome.
(CHEERING)
GARY MEHIGAN: Now, Lin, you are Adam's father. How do you feel?
At this moment on top of the world.
No, it's been a... I think he has done credit to himself.
He cries more than I do.
(LAUGHTER)
And at this stage, can I be excused and I will just give him a hug.
Well, that was a lovely visit, Adam. Yeah, it was nice.
To your lovely home.
Quite excited to go back there.
Was learning to drive important for you?
Did it mean freedom?
I think in Adelaide you kind of got to have a car to get around.
I moved out of home, for want of a better word, at 14,
which is too young to drive,
and I remember having real problems getting around.
One of my first jobs I was working the graveyard shift at McDonald's.
Oh, true? Yeah, from midnight to 6am.
I don't know if I should probably say but I remember driving
my brother's car illegally with no licence
just so I could get to work and earn my, I think it was...
I think I literally earnt $4.10 an hour.
Oh, my God.
So this is the school.
Bloody hell. Look how fancy schools are these days.
Now, where are we now, Adam?
This is Prince Alfred College, 12 years of my life right here.
12? Yes.
You only went to one school? Yep.
Yeah. You're very rare. You're a rare bird.
And over here, of course, that's the senior school.
Yes.
But today we're gonna go to the preparatory school.
So you would have walked this path many times?
Many, many times.
This is... I mean, it's all completely different.
The whole school is very, very different.
Oh, is it? Oh, right. But this is still the same.
This is... this path and the markings on it
are actually a very important part of my primary school life,
'cause this is where they'd have marble season.
Marble season.
Yeah, just a week where you're allowed to bring marbles to school.
I do wish I had some marbles to give you.
You didn't want to come here when I was a kid.
You didn't want to come here?
No, this was the headmaster's office.
So if you were headed around this way
it meant that you were either sick or in a lot of trouble.
Right. Did you ever get into trouble, Adam?
I did, actually, quite a lot.
(KIDS CHATTER)
I love how there's a window that looks in.
It's like a little... It's child-sized.
Yeah, this starts to look a bit more familiar.
That was a music room.
Music...
I think this was my...
..maybe my Year 4 class room, a Year 3 classroom.
Wow.
(LAUGHS) Oh...
Does it look a bit similar? Yeah, to be honest it does.
Did you play sport?
Ah, I did in primary school.
By the time I got to high school it became quite difficult.
You know, when I was 15, everyone else was 17 in high school,
and they're all, you know, a foot and a half taller than me.
So why were you so young?
When you get to this primary school,
have you jumped or did you come here early
or are they putting you in 4th class straightaway?
What bits did you miss in junior?
So, I was four when they put me into Year 1.
My brother kind of had...
He started when he was four in Year 1
but then he also skipped a year as well.
So he was quite a lot younger than everyone else.
Did you find schoolwork easy?
Yeah, pretty easy I think. Oh, I wish.
But that... It's a bit of a double-edged sword, I would say.
Because it was quite easy
it also meant you didn't have to work very hard.
I guess you didn't really take it seriously as you should have,
which is why I ended up getting into quite a lot of disciplinary problems
and, ah... things.
I don't think I was a bad kid
but pretty mischievous in primary school.
Is it because you wouldn't do what you were being told to in class or...
My mum tells a story of, you know, some class going on
and she got called by the teacher
because everyone was sitting around,
doing their work and listening to the teacher, and then...
Apparently I...
I don't remember doing it
but I had gotten out of my chair and crawled along the wall...
(BOTH LAUGH)
..trying to escape the classroom,
like, behind all of the furniture and everything
to try and just get out because I was bored.
I wonder if too, though, being Asian was an issue,
if that put a target on your back at all.
I mean, it changed a lot, I guess, later in life,
towards high school and beyond.
I was doing single sculling with a friend of mine, Tim,
and we were coming down the Torrens
and there was this group of...
I would have been probably 13, maybe 12,
and this group of men, you know, adults
sitting on the... on the bank of the river drinking
and they just started pelting beer bottles and things at me
as we were rowing down
and screaming abuse as I was rowing through.
I remember just being... firstly terrified,
but then also really quite,
you know, shaken up and sad about the whole thing.
That was around the time when you had, you know,
Pauline Hanson in Queensland... Right.
..saying, you know,
you're being swamped by Asians
and they're going to take over everything or whatever,
and... so it was not a great time to be Asian in Australia.
Did you know what you wanted to do once you finished high school?
Was there anything on the horizon?
Both your parents are doctors. Did you feel like that was something?
Both my parents are doctors.
Aaron's a doctor and Amber is a doctor as well.
Oh, is she? Great. (LAUGHS)
So I'm very much the black sheep,
but I did end up studying law at... Oh!
..Adelaide Uni there.
Worked as a lawyer for about 12 years before...
..growing my hair long and cooking for a living.
"Growing my hair long." That's my favourite sentence today.
How old were you when you went to uni?
I think I started uni when I was 16.
I remember my first year at university
and I have never felt so out of place,
and it wasn't till I joined a dramatic society
and found people who did stuff that I liked that I could relax.
I cannot imagine what it's like to be a 16-year-old
going into a huge university.
I mean, you know, there are bars on campus.
How does a kid, or someone still not quite 18, negotiate...
Julia, what you need is a brother
who is exactly three years old than you...
Got you. ..who looks quite similar to you
and has a name that's very similar to yours
and you just take his ID
and you go and get yourself an ID made with a photo of it
and you have a fake ID that allows you to walk through university.
And that is how you do it, kids. (LAUGHS)
That's important.
You know, I wasn't out there trying to get hammered every night.
I was just out there trying to fit in.
How about we head off to the Botanical Gardens...
Yeah. ..to finish up the day?
Oh, do you know what just dawned on me?
This is very hallowed ground, Julia. Is it?
This, roughly 30 years ago,
is the room in which I obtained my pen license,
and I've been using a pen for 30 years.
Ever since. Ever since.
Oh. Not the driving. of course.
Did that illegally to begin with, but anyway...
Your Grandma used to come and bring you here?
Yeah. Yeah.
Used to come here with Mum and Grandma quite a lot actually.
Speaking of peaceful, how did being a lawyer suit you?
I loved it, to be honest. Did you?
Yeah, I really did. What did you love about it, Adam?
I guess... You don't strike me as a lawyer.
The practice of law is actually pretty creative.
You get a problem, you fix it, and you hand it back to somebody.
I guess...
You have a set of rules and then you work out how to break them.
(LAUGHS)
Let's talk about MasterChef, or as you like to call it, your gap year,
which just really tickles me.
Why do you refer to it as your gap year?
Well, I'd never really had any time off, you know.
How's that... Really? Never had any time off?
Went from school to uni, but I was working the whole time anyway.
Right. You know, I had part-time jobs.
From uni, you only had three days off
between my last exam and starting my first job.
So I kind of went through my entire life
without having anything more than a couple of weeks off.
I was, like, well...
What happens if you step off the treadmill for a second...
Mmm.
..and rather than running forward,
try to pick which direction you want to be running in.
If I think back to that point now...
..it's the stupidest thing you could ever do.
Worked out OK, don't regret it, not by a mile.
But if you put rationally to someone,
"How about you embarrass yourself on national television
"for a chance to win a fraction of your current salary..."
(LAUGHS) Yes...
"after spending a year locked up in a house like a child."
Yeah.
It's the highest rating non-sporting event,
bar perhaps a few royal weddings -
that'll never happen again -
and when you win it a TV exec says to you
"Look, well done.
"You'll probably get a TV show
"but it'll probably be on SBS or ABC at a pinch,"
that must have surprised you.
No, it didn't. It didn't?
Growing up in Australia, you know what networks are
and you know... you know, it's not by chance
that you never saw an Asian face on Channel 7 or Channel 9 or Channel 10
before reality TV.
That's not... that's not just happenstance.
There is a depth of understanding of food and culture
through your... your cooking,
which you undoubtedly got from your grandmother.
Mmm. What did she mean to you?
Oh, she's a... she was a phenomenal lady.
Unbelievable the affect that she had on our family.
You know, she... she could speak nine languages.
Nine? But she never went to school.
She was married at 15 or 16, had three kids,
her husband passed away before she was 25,
and she used to take my dad and his brothers to school,
because she never went to school.
She'd take them to school and then she'd drop them off at the front
and then she would run around the back of the schoolroom
and listen at the window.
So she could...
So she could learn.
Oh, my God.
What a beautiful woman.
Oh...
I wasn't expecting to tear up like that but...
I know. No, not at all.
You're going to tear me up too.
But, yeah, she was... she was amazing.
She taught me how to cook, she taught me lots of things really.
And you've said that she dragged the family out of poverty.
How is that possible? (LAUGHS)
Well, she won Lotto. (LAUGHS)
She won Lotto, you say.
Not like a huge amount of money but she won...
I think probably in today's money it would be $5,000 or something.
Really quite a small amount.
It wasn't like... She didn't buy a yacht.
(LAUGHS)
But it was enough just to keep the family out of poverty,
then that allowed her kids to go to school
and go to, you know, good schools
and have an education that she never had
and, you know, all of the...
..after... after no-one in her family
ever going to school, let alone university,
all of her kids went to university.
Incredible.
What are your hopes for the future?
If you'd asked me 10 years ago when I was a lawyer
"What's... What's your goal in five years time?"
I would have said, "This actual position in that office
"and I want that view," or whatever.
It was very concrete.
I guess my goals these days are much more... emotional, I guess,
around the kind of person I would want to be
or the kind of father I want to be.
Look, in the future, when, you know, I'm 90
and Bindi Irwin is now hosting Home Delivery
and your kids are being interviewed on her Home Delivery,
what do you think they will say about you as a dad?
You don't remember your parents for great things they've done.
You remember them for the people they are.
Mmm. Oh.
Isn't he gorgeous? Isn't he gorgeous?
Stop it.
Adam, it's been amazing being able to spend the day with you in Adelaide.
Thank you so much for coming... Thank you.
..with us on this journey,
and here in this amazing park, but, look,
one of my hopes for your future is that
you and I get to commentate Asiavision.
That's all I ask for. Stop it, Julia.