‘Not that kind of show’: Alice Zaslavsky wants to shake up perfectionist TV cooking

There are two words that ABC News Breakfast food correspondent Alice Zaslavsky will never use when talking about her expert subject: “healthy” and “naughty”. So committed is she to changing the language around what we eat, when she cooks a pumpkin lasagne for fellow ABC broadcaster Sammy J on her “chop and chat” series, A Bite To Eat with Alice, she simply calls the dish a “lasagne”, and doesn’t even mention the fact that her guest is vegetarian.

“Australian tastes are changing,” says Zaslavsky, aka “Alice in Frames” to her online followers, and to MasterChef Australia fans the bespectacled young woman who, in 2012’s season four, famously relinquished her immunity pin to save a fellow contestant.

Alice Zaslavsky, with her A Bite To Eat With Alice guest Sammy J, says “Australian tastes are changing”.

“It’s reflective of the more fluid way in which we’re seeing each other and respecting each other’s diets,” she says. “Gone are the days when people turned their noses up at vegans. There’s a more inclusive way to talk about food. I never say something is ‘healthy’ because then our expectation of flavour goes down. There are no ‘guilty pleasures’, no ‘treats’, because that language sets up negative connotations, and, thankfully, diet culture is well and truly on the way out.”

The 50-episode series follows a familiar format: celebrities (including Pia Miranda, Colin Lane, Anthony Callea, Josh Thomas, Dilruk Jayasinha and Stephanie Alexander) enter a studio kitchen with one favourite ingredient. They also bring a mild food hang-up for Zaslavsky to address. The mood is light. Mistakes and mess are celebrated.

“I will forget to put an ingredient in, or maybe something won’t quite turn out right,” she says. “There was a moment in Donna Hay’s episode, which I hope they keep in. She’s so precise and such a perfectionist, and she said to me, ‘I thought we’d have to redo that!’, and I said, ‘No, Donna Hay, it’s not that kind of show’. Cooking is improvisation. There are always solutions.”

Growing up in Melbourne after her family migrated from Georgia in Eastern Europe when she was five, Zaslavsky recalls her fellow athletes on the satellite squad for the national gymnastics team nibbling carrot sticks for lunch.

Alice Zaslavsky with Donna Hay, who was suprised that Zaslavsky likes to wing it on her new cooking show. Credit: ABC

“[Dieting] was never a conversation my mother or grandmother had,” she says. “In my household, I would walk in, and the first question would be, ‘Have you eaten?’”

In the Soviet Union, their Ashkenazi Jewish culture was hidden. Her mother bought matzah for Passover in secret, concealing it on the journey home. There were whispers of a jeweller who would melt jewellery to create Star of David pendants.

Zaslavsky gleaned much about Jewish culture and cuisine when she started school at Leibler Yavneh College. The first time she learnt to bake challah for Shabbat was in 2016, when she hosted a “biggest challah bake” for 2500 Jewish women and girls. She’s up to speed now, granting John Safran’s request for an Ashkenazi Jewish feast for his appearance on the series, by making him chicken soup with matzo balls. It is a moment of cultural celebration during a problematic time for high-profile Jewish Australians.

“The past year has been difficult for anyone who’s got links to [the Middle East],” she says. “We’re the ones that are actually coming together and having conversations. I’ve got a colleague at ABC Radio Melbourne who is Lebanese. I’m checking in with her and she’s checking in with me.

“It’s often those that don’t have skin in the game that have the most to say. I’ve not being trolled, but I can only imagine [that might change] now that I’m going to be a much more public Jew in the Australian media.”

A primary school teacher before MasterChef, Zaslavsky is a prominent voice in nutrition education through her radio shows, books, and online resource for schools Phenomenom, which she runs with her husband, osteopath Nick Fallu. Their five-year-old daughter is an adventurous eater, having always been respected “like a dinner guest”.

“I never really left teaching,” says Zaslavsky. “My classroom’s just changed shape from being four walls to a telly.”

A Bite To Eat With Alice premieres on Monday, October 28, at 6pm on the ABC.

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