‘Wasn’t extremely proud’: Why MasterChef’s Tommy Pham was once embarrassed by his Vietnamese food

Australian MasterChef alumni Tommy Pham was once embarrassed to be seen with his lunch box at school. Here’s why.

As a child, MasterChef star alumnus Tommy Pham was often embarrassed to be seen with his Vietnamese food in his school lunch box.

Now, the father of three and cookbook author feels proud his sons can embrace their heritage and share their love for food with friends, free of fear.

“Growing up and having Vietnamese food, I was always hiding it because it wasn’t very popular,” he said.

“It was something that I wasn’t extremely proud of because (the food) just made me different to the norm.

“I love that it’s out there now. It’s beautiful to see people loving Vietnamese food. I love that it’s coming up and everybody loves to talk about it.”

MasterChef Alumni Tommy Pham said he is proud his sons can embrace their heritage and share their love for food with friends, free of fear. Picture: Justin Lloyd.

Pham recently welcomed his third baby boy to the world in August – a younger brother to toddlers Hugo and Miles, but waited four weeks to decide on a name for the latest edition to the Pham clan.

The Daily Telegraph can now reveal the new bub is named Toby.

“We were holding onto the eight week rule, we are just so indecisive,” he said.

“When No.3 came out as a boy we were just like ‘what are we going to do, we’ve used all our good names’.

“It’s so lovely to watch the boys fall in love with their baby brother.”

Pham said after having three children, his style of cooking changed and it can feel “overwhelming” at times for parents to prepare meals for their youngsters.

“Pre-kids it’s you making food and you don’t have to really care too much about what’s in it like, minerals, vitamins, all these things but then once you have a little human that needs to grow, you need to make foods that are really good for them and something they will like,” he said.

Pham has recently launched a first of its kind cookbook – the Alula Toddler Tummies Cookbook, raising awareness of the importance of prebiotics in digestive health and toddler wellbeing, while sparking inspiration in the kitchen.

“There’s a statistic that 74 per cent of parents admit that they could be doing more to support their toddlers’ nutrition,” he said.

“There’s a lot of pressure I think parents put on themselves. I think coming up with the idea (of what to cook) is really difficult, even sometimes for me.”

Originally published as ‘Wasn’t extremely proud’: Why MasterChef’s Tommy Pham was once embarrassed by his Vietnamese food