Kiwi-Chinese influencer and former MasterChef winner Sam Low on coming out, the politics of food and why he’s encouraging us to take a fresh look at the food world and what it actually represents.
Low’s creativity saw him go on to win Three’s 2022 MasterChef New Zealand when his sea dessert kombu icecream earned three perfect 10 scores from the judges. The 31-year-old, who was also New Zealand’s champion barista in 2016, has recently appeared on TVNZ+ show Sik Fan Lah!, which shares stories about food and modern Kiwi-Chinese life.
The Auckland-based influencer and content creator makes regular appearances at food shows around Aotearoa. He’s also hard at work on the cookbook to be published as part of his MasterChef prize package. Low can’t say anything about the cookbook just yet, but he is keen to talk about – and deconstruct – the way we experience food. He’s sought to elevate Western perceptions of Chinese cuisine since his MasterChef NZ days, but he’s also questioning other hierarchies in the food world.
“Being a voice within food media, it’s important to try and push the language of cultural currency exchange to equality, just having a voice in that space of equal value. That encompasses everything that I do,” he told Reset.
“Learning about food has been a big one for me and when I say that, it’s not, ‘I am learning new techniques or learning new ingredients.’ That is part of it, but I’m questioning the food decisions I make on a daily basis, and the community around me. What I enjoy about food or dislike about food doesn’t always come back to my study of taste and smell from a scientific level from the work I did in the coffee industry. Now, when I make food decisions as someone who has the ability to influence people, I look more into the psychological influences we’ve had making food decisions.”
For Low, that also means thinking about the LGBTQ+ community in the food world. “I question food masculinity and food marketing, and how that informs whether I think something is considered feminine or masculine. What is the queer movement of food like? I want to understand why there are a lot of female or queer identities in food media spaces, but then when you look at the restaurant world, it’s very hyper-masculine. They kind of work together in a weird relationship to uplift and create influence.”
Low says leaders in the food industry have the platform to make global changes. He mentions Rene Redzepi, from [renowned Danish restaurant] Noma, who pioneered the foraging movement that’s now entered the mainstream. Closer to home, Wellington-based chef Monique Fiso’s use of indigenous ingredients has trickled down, with kawakawa soda available in supermarkets.
Identity politics around food even impact basic grocery items. “Like what colour packaging the yoghurt container is to target different types of clientele, even though the product is basically the same.”
Exploring identity has always been part of Low’s life. His mother and father, Fong Siu Fong Low and Hon Chong Low, moved from Zhongshan in China to Fiji in the 1980s, where the couple had several food businesses, including a noodle factory. Low was born in Suva in 1992.
“I was born in the year of the monkey, hence why I’m very curious and very cheeky. Spirituality and Buddhism have always been a part of my upbringing.” One of his first tattoos was of the Monkey King. “He’s a Chinese mythological creature, a very powerful monkey. He was up to no good and he found a high priest who said, ‘I will free you from this entrapment as long as you take me to the West.’ I see myself in that a little bit. I think I am someone who had to learn and assimilate in an environment and try to figure it out on my own, because I didn’t know any queer Asian people growing up. I was on this land that was very foreign to me, and I was lost.”
Low was 8 when the family moved to New Zealand. He has two brothers, who are 11 and five years older. The Lows, who speak a dialect of Cantonese, operated takeaway outlets and dairies in West Auckland and multi-cultural Māngere.
“Cultural identity is a huge one for me. When I was younger, assimilating in an environment where it felt like I wasn’t welcomed, you would try to ‘whitewash’ yourself. I am trying to figure out, unpack and reframe the way I think about my upbringing and understand my family a bit more. As a first-generation Asian, I can’t speak for everyone, but a lot of people in my community blame our parents for not allowing us to embrace exactly who we are. We get told what we should be and shouldn’t be and not define our own successes. But the problem with that mentality is now that I’m kind of getting older and seeing my parents age, a big thing was that they were never given the luxury and opportunity to assimilate. When they moved over here, they weren’t given three months to not do anything and embrace the culture and adapt. From day one, they had to hustle, and they had to make a living.”
Low told his parents he is queer two years ago. “I was a late bloomer. I came out in my early 20s to my closest friends and I think I was 29 when I came out to my parents properly. The hardest thing I’ve ever done was come out to my parents as gay. The day after, they invited me for dinner with my favourite foods. [Being gay] is something they don’t understand, and we don’t talk about, but I’m slowly showing them that I am okay and I’m happy, without needing to be their version of successful.”
He knows his parents love him and are proud of him. “It’s never really expressed through word. It’s always through gesture. And I think that’s just how they’ve been brought up. As much as I wish my parents would just say, ‘I love you,’ or ‘I’m proud of you,’ I’ve had to really understand they show it in other ways. This is so cliche, but food has really helped me communicate with my parents.”
The Grey Lynn resident remembers his childhood food with fondness. The family didn’t have much, so they created luxury out of what they had. “Going back to child-like food has always brought this sense of joy that fine dining never has. Fine dining for me is more research than eating for enjoyment. I am really basic in terms of cravings. I love chicken nuggies and cocktail sausages with Japanese mayonnaise. An egg, white-bread sandwich with mayonnaise and processed cheese is delicious.” He likes his coffee black – long blacks in the morning and filter coffee in the afternoon.
Low describes himself as “very single”. “I’m dating myself at the moment. I am going through that whole understanding of self and being okay with the idea of perceived loneliness and I think understanding that side of myself has been really important,” he says with a laugh. “I’m not lonely. I have lots of good people around me.”
With his warm smile, quick wit, and engaging personality, Low is a natural on-screen. He loves the theatre scene and is part of an in-development Wellington food theatre project, Trimalchio’s Feast, where he’s collaborating with six other creatives in Bats Theatre’s Stablab programme. The project is a riff on Petronius’ 2000-year-old satirical account of a drunken Roman banquet, hosted by grossly ostentatious Trimalchio.
Low manages to balance creative projects with earning an income as an influencer. “I do a lot of brand work at the moment because it pays. As long as I’m working with brands that have a shared kind of ideology and mentality, it means I’m still able to push my beliefs at a mainstream level as well. Partnering with De’Longhi and New World has been really good for me. Those have been really long relationships and they’ve always just allowed me to be who I am.”
Ultimately, Low would like to have an empire, much like American restaurateur David Chang, with restaurants, bars, cafes, cookbooks, podcasts, magazines, products and condiments. “David Chang did so much for the American Asian community in the US. That type of movement eventually did slowly trickle down into our world. The fact that we are able to buy things like Taiwanese steamed buns in local cafes is a result of his work. And he basically made it okay for people to pay more for Asian food.”
Will Low be moving overseas to further his career? “I was lucky enough to live in Vancouver and Melbourne, which both have established Chinatowns, and that was really informative for me. I want to travel more, but New Zealand will be home base for a while. If I am able to navigate a different conversation that sparks positive change, that’s what I’ve always wanted to do.”
“I’m kind of living the foodie dream but also the influencer dream as well.”
