Known as the down-to-earth and delightful judge on MasterChef Australia, Poh Ling Yeow’s on-screen journey began in 2009 when first appearing as a contestant on the inaugural season of the series, ultimately coming second. But the now two-time TV WEEK Gold Logie nominee almost never made it onto the show.
At the time, Poh was focused on building a career as an artist and wasn’t convinced she was ready to walk away from it all.
“I was finally carving out a living from my art – still probably making less than the dole – but I was stoked with myself,” she tells TV WEEK with a laugh.
“So I worried I was throwing away everything I’d worked so hard for, and I didn’t even show up to my second audition.”
Fortunately for Australian television, the producers weren’t prepared to let her disappear that easily.
“They called asking where I was and said, ‘You aren’t even through yet. Cross that bridge when you get to it. Just come in,'” Poh recalls. “They were cheeky and it worked. The rest is history.”
Once she stepped into the MasterChef kitchen, Poh discovered something she hadn’t realised she was missing – a connection to her Malaysian heritage.
Having moved from Malaysia to Adelaide at just nine years old, she says she’d slowly drifted away from parts of her culture.
“At 35, I was starting to realise I’d let go of so much of my culture,” she reflects. “I was raised as an Aussie kid and didn’t have the language, so food became this thing I needed to hold on to.
“The show came along at exactly the right time. That’s when I was cooking century egg dishes and experimenting on the fly, trying to reclaim this part of myself while people watched in real time.”
The experience also gave her something she didn’t know she was craving.
“It was like being in a workplace where someone was finally saying, ‘Yes, you’re doing this right,'” she says. “Being an artist can be quite lonely and solitary. The show gave me a sense of belonging, and it completely transformed the way I thought about myself.”
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