Poh Ling Yeow on Mormonism, Masterchef and her guilty pleasure recipe

The ever-cheerful Poh Ling Yeow lights up any room. Poh is a chef, painter and former Mormon who has been beaming across Australian television screens since appearing as a contestant on the inaugural season of MasterChef in 2009.

This year, she returned to the show as a judge following the death of judge Jock Zonfrillo in 2023.

Poh was born in Malaysia and came to Australia with her family at the age of 9, eventually settling in Adelaide.

She sat down with Virginia Trioli for the podcast “You Don’t Know Me” to share some Questions that reveal her ambitions as a celebrity chef and her secret favorite food.

You would never know, but…

I’m a very introverted person. I realized that when I went to an awards ceremony for the first time.

I spend a lot of time alone. And I enjoy that. All the things I like to do are solitary activities: gardening, painting, cooking.

That doesn’t really surprise me because artists are often observers, especially actors, comedians and journalists, so I think it takes a certain kind of person to stand back and watch.

The fork in the road I almost took was…

Being a Mormon. I was pretty religious once. I was 16.

I think I was pretty immature as a woman back then. I don’t think my self-esteem was great back then. If the right man had grabbed me back then, I would have been a happy housewife and wife, and in Mormon culture, it’s traditional to have lots of children at a very young age.

I think it would have really spoken to me at that time in my life and helped me to gain more self-esteem.

(My family) was going through a really tough time financially and we were feeling pretty isolated and really vulnerable at the time.

(Mormonism) gave us this whole social infrastructure with really nice people. And it was a very safe place for me as a teenager who was starting to be interested in boys.

I don’t regret it in that respect, but I think there’s a reason it appealed to me at the time. I think I easily could have gone down that path and none of this would have happened.

That one time I got it terribly wrong…

It’s really hard for me to answer this question because I firmly believe that everything happens for a reason.

And whether that’s true or not, or whether it’s just a tool I use to get through difficult times, it’s worked so well for me. And I think that’s why I have so much emotional strength.

I was incredibly naive as a young girl because I grew up in an environment where you had to be very reserved. Not only was there a religious element, we were also very culturally conservative.

My parents wanted the best for me, but that came with many, very strict rules.

I believe that it is a great thing for you to learn from everything that goes wrong.

I always thought it might be genetic because my mother seems pretty resilient in that regard. And I gave myself a lot of credit for it, but I realized that maybe it’s because I have a shocking memory and forget the trauma!

I can’t stop thinking about it…

Cancel culture. It really bothers me and I can’t sleep at night.

I feel like we’ve become so limited by political correctness and using the exact same language.

I think it’s perfectly justified for a lot of things… but I feel like the intent just got completely sidelined. Firing someone after the fact is a really toxic thing to do, in my opinion.

I firmly believe in forgiveness. And I think it’s okay to make mistakes, especially when you’re young and stupid and obviously no longer have the personality you have today.

My secret vice is …

Spam and rice.

I don’t even fry it. I just squeeze it out of the can. It makes this disgusting slurping sound when it hits the cutting board, and I just cut it into cubes and throw it on some steamed rice, and it’s delicious. I enjoy it.

We don’t have a cold cuts culture because I grew up in Malaysia, a tropical country.

I am still so proud that …

I’m a hard working person. I think a lot of people think that you become famous overnight or that it’s luck.

Look, there’s a bit of luck involved, but I think a lot of it just comes down to good old hard work.

I’m still going to do a solid week on MasterChef and then go home and bake for my market stall (in Adelaide).

On Saturdays I bake for 10 hours, on Sundays I run my market stall and then on Sunday evening I’m on the plane back to the set for Monday morning. I love having that sense of community.

It’s my church. My Sunday market is my church. I see my people. I can do these things with very old-fashioned values.

Listen to the extensive conversation between Poh Ling Yeow and Virginia Trioli on the You don’t know me podcast.