The Unbearable Lightness of Being Hungry | A Sydney Food Blog

New podcast – Kirsha Kaechele, Eat The Problem, MONA

August 5th, 2019  |  Published in Latest, Podcasts

Sweet and sour cane-toad legs. Multiple cat recipes. A deadly cocktail you’re not meant to serve. These are some of the fascinating (and deliberately provocative) things you’ll find in Eat The Problem, the 544-page book by American artist and curator Kirsha Kaechele. It’s part cookbook and art project, with an impressive list of collaborators (including chefs Dominique Crenn, Peter Gilmore, Christine Manfield and Enrique Olvera) and pages that are filled with creative ways of dealing with invasive species (pig’s eyeball margaritas or starfish-on-a-stick, anyone?).

Eat The Problem is also the inspiration behind an exhibition of the same name at MONA, Hobart (running until September 2) and a guest dinner series happening on August 6 at Melbourne’s Vue de Monde, Byron Bay’s Harvest on August 7 and Brisbane’s Urbane on August 8.

Kirsha is the perfect candidate for imaginatively addressing pests, given that she grew up on Guam, which was overrun with brown snakes – the “rock star of invasive species”. They even landed coverage in The New York Times and inspired WTF solutions (paracetamol-laced mice were dropped from parachutes to deal with the snake problem).

Also, her wedding dress was made out of invasive deer, she carries a cane toad purse and thinks we should make candles using fat from culled animals. Thinking sustainably comes naturally to her and it was her plan to hold a zero-waste food market at MONA in 2013 that helped kickstart the Eat The Problem project.

Kirsha is fascinating to talk to and she approaches the issue of sustainability like no one else – instead of being overly serious and dour, she addresses environmental issues with plenty of invention and an unmissably bright palette (the feasts that launched the Eat The Problem exhibition, after all, took place on the world’s biggest rainbow-coloured glockenspiel). Even her cutlery designs, which force people to share their food or feed someone across the table, are meant to provoke conversation and social interactions

She also talks about her 24 Carrot Gardens Project and her favourite places to eat and drink in Hobart (and Sydney, too).

You can listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts or download it via RSS or directly. You can also find it on Stitcher and Google Podcasts nowadays. Also, major gratitude to anyone who writes nice things about this show on Apple Podcasts. And mega thanks to everyone who subscribes to this podcast and tells me they enjoy listening to it – every instance of support is a huge deal to me.

Photography of Vince Trim’s rabbit saddle with potatoes and Christine Manfield’s sea urchin spaghetti by Rémi Chauvin, courtesy of Eat The Problem by Kirsha Kaechele.

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Hi, I'm Lee Tran Lam. When not blogging with my mouth full, I'm usually writing, presenting Local Fidelity on FBi radio, making zines, producing podcasts or continually breaking promises about how I really am gonna get through my book pile one day.

All the good pictures on this blog are by photography ace (and patient boyfriend), Will Reichelt, (all the dodgy ones can be credited to me)!

The lovely banner is by friend and ultra-talented illustrator Grace Lee.

This site redesign was made possible by the next-level generosity and expertise of Daniel Boud, whose code-tinkering ways are only outranked by his seriously inspired way with a camera.

You can read more about my co-conspirators here.

This is a blog I do for pure fun and zero influence – there's no sponsorship, sneaky advertorial or advertising. I pay for all the food mentioned, 'cos it seems the ethical thing to do.


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This is a blog about eating and drinking in Sydney, Australia (with the odd cross-border or off-topic detour). BYO appetite.

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