Food beat: Q&A with journalism alum Karon Liu

Karon Liu has been a Toronto-based food reporter for more than a decade, from testing recipes to writing about the impacts of the pandemic on the food industry. A Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) School of Journalism alumni, his work spans recipe columns, news features and penning the introduction to the 2022 book What We Talk About When We Talk About Dumplings, which includes essays by several TMU alumni and instructors. 

When did you graduate from TMU? Did you do the undergraduate or graduate program?

Spring of 2008. I did the four-year undergrad program.

How did your experiences at TMU prepare you for your career?

Aside from a lot of people who work in journalism in the city being former TMU grads, and thus, being able to know someone who knew someone who worked in a newsroom where I could pitch a freelance piece or get some gig work being a proofreader, I'd say the program really throws you out into the city (compliment) and forces you to get over the fear of talking to strangers or being perceived as nosy. It gave me (and a lot of my fellow classmates) a lot of big city experience talking to a lot of different people with different backgrounds and covering different events that would be useful no matter where I ended up. Also, media law class and how not to get sued. That's very important.

How long have you been working at the Toronto Star as the food reporter? 

Officially, since January 2016, and then before that, I freelanced with them for about a year. And then before that, I was the food reporter at an alt[ernative] weekly that the Star used to own called The Grid. 

What does a food reporter cover? 

It can be whatever you want it to be because food is so all-encompassing. There are always so many different ways you can go about it. 

You can write recipes. You can test recipes. You can write about cookbooks. There are other reporters who come from it from a policy standpoint, or you can also be an agricultural reporter and write about things like climate change, or the treatment of migrant workers who put food on our tables, and farm subsidies.

You can also be a restaurant reporter, so you can write on openings and closings and chef profiles, trend stories and the economics of restaurants and how that affects the industry and the city as a whole. It really is what you make it to be. I was initially hired to be a recipe tester and recipe developer at the Star. We used to have a test kitchen at our old office, so I did that along with writing about restaurant openings and closings, profiles of chefs or cooks, and trend stories. And now, because I don’t do recipes anymore, I focus more on profiles of chefs and restaurants that are doing really interesting things in the city, or writing about certain pockets of the city that I think are culinary destinations, trend stories like if all of a sudden a certain dish or style of cooking pops up everywhere in the city. 

What are some unique stories from the food industry that you have discovered through your reporting?

Years ago, I did a series on how to open a restaurant, because I think there’s a misconception from the public that it’s very easy to operate a restaurant. People will be like, “Oh, I love cooking. Friends tell me I should open a restaurant all the time. Maybe I should do that.” But there are a lot of things that the general public doesn't really know about. Like finding a space and coming up with the money to start it. The nitty gritty, like getting a license from the AGCO (Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario) and things like food pricing and how to balance the cost of ingredients. Or, you know, who are you going to get to wash your napkins and tablecloths? 

I’ve also written during the pandemic about what restaurant workers and frontline workers were going through, the dangers that they face to put food on our table or bring food to our stores. 

Also, a lot of the origins of certain dishes, things that are kind of ubiquitous but we don’t really know the history behind. That’s like the sushi pizza, which is weirdly enough a uniquely Toronto thing. Same with the butter chicken roti.

The restaurant industry has changed significantly since the start of the pandemic. Four years later, how are restaurants doing?

Many of them still say the numbers haven’t come back to pre-2020 levels just because working from home is more of a common thing now, so people aren’t going downtown, and the cost of living has come up. When you’re trying to cut back on non-essential spending, the first thing that always goes is dining out, takeout and things like that. So restaurateurs are trying to deal with that and also changing dining patterns. 

A lot of their hours are now kind of based around when office workers are in the office because now it’s not always Monday to Friday, a lot of it’s Tuesday to Thursday. There’s a bigger push towards takeout now because takeout has been more normalized during the pandemic. This happens a lot in the lower-priced and mid-tier restaurants.

What is your favourite story you’ve written or discovery you’ve made during your time reporting on food?

We did a March Madness-style bracket of Bulk Barn snacks, because I love Bulk Barn. I go there every week. I feel like everyone goes to Bulk Barn, but no one really writes about it. And for some reason, that took off. I just did it for my own giggles, but it clearly resonated with people. 

What makes Toronto’s food scene unique? How has it changed since you started reporting on food here?

It’s become a cliché at this point to say how culturally diverse it is, but it really is not until you're out of Toronto that you realize how good we have it here. You know, you name a country, and chances are there is someone cooking food from that country. We really are spoiled by the types of restaurants and grocery stores that we have across the GTA. 

It can be whatever you want it to be because food is so all-encompassing.

This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity. Karon Liu’s work can be found in the Toronto Star (external link) .