Here’s why some off-the-cuff remarks in a cooking show are so wide of the mark.
It was the most cooked thing you’ve heard on a cooking show.
Cairns-based My Kitchen Rules contestant Michael Edelberg trashed the City of Logan and its Logan-based contestants, Lilli McKay and Lauren Argyle, drilling down on the fact that McKay had never travelled outside of Queensland.
“Logan has a bit of a reputation for being the slums,” Edelberg said to McKay and Arygle in a promotional video for the Channel 7 television show.
When Argyle said you can’t “generalise” Logan, Edelberg replied that he generalises all of Logan and then called the women “Logan bogans”.
“Michael and I have our taste bud experience from travelling the world together,” Edelberg’s fellow partner-contestant Rielli Portegys said to the camera later, away from the group. “How can you have that when you haven’t even left Queensland?”
It didn’t take long for the internet to erupt, with Logan mayor Jon Raven then stepping up to the plate to hold a press conference late Tuesday morning, such was his outrage.
“In some ways, I’m grateful to this bloke because he’s had a chop at us that lets me come out and shatter this stereotype,” Raven later said on 4BC.
“You don’t need to travel the world to get a distinguished palate. In Logan … you can eat food from all over the world.
“In fact, the people in Logan cook better grub for their families every night than those two muppets could cook on any cooking competition.”
Edelberg’s comments were exceedingly dumb, but perhaps understandable, given how misunderstood Logan is beyond the city’s own borders.
Argyle’s right. You can’t generalise the place, such is its multicultural make-up. There are significant Indigenous, Filipino, Indian and Pacific Islander populations in the city, among many others. And that’s reflected in its cuisine.
Edelberg and Protegys might like to bang on about how much they’ve travelled the world for food – which sounds a bit like the cooking equivalent of helicopter journalism – but if I was facing off against some folks from Logan, I’d be shaking in my boots.
The place has a stack of cracking eateries. You can go large on specialty coffee, terrific baked goods and elevated breakfasts at cafes such as Never Been, Bake-It, Coffee in the Woods and Ant Coffee; eat luscious lobster ramen at Ikkairo, Japanese barbeque at Shinbashi Yakiniku or precise Korean at Manok Park; or wrap your hands around some of the best halal burgers and sandwiches in the south-east at Fatty Patty and Smoke N Chew BBQ.
And that’s just scratching the surface. If you live along the highway in Brisbane or the Gold Coast, Logan’s a great place for a weekend adventure.
There’s also some fabulous food markets, including the Global Food Markets every Sunday in Woodridge, which has to be one of the very best and most multicultural markets in the state.
Logan has its bogans, no doubt, but so does everywhere, including Brisbane and indeed Cairns. And its multicultural nature more than offsets it. If you live in the south-east, pay a visit soon.
Restaurant reviews, news and the hottest openings served to your inbox.
Matt Shea is Food and Culture Editor at Brisbane Times. He is a former editor and editor-at-large at Broadsheet Brisbane, and has written for Escape, Qantas Magazine, the Guardian, Jetstar Magazine and SilverKris, among many others.