Raised by Wolves: A memoir with bite

Growing up Cantonese in the racist outer suburbs of Melbourne was hard enough for Jess Ho, but add in a dysfunctional family who only ever made peace over food (and then only until the bill arrived), and it’s clear that a normal life was never on the menu for her. She emerged from her childhood with two important traits: a major psychological complex and a kick-arse palate. Both would help her fit right into the messy world of Melbourne’s food scene. In hospitality Jess found her new family, a bunch of outsiders who shared her lust for life and appetite for self-destruction. As the Australian food scene exploded, fuelled by a thirst for the sort of ‘exotic’ foods she’d grown up on, Jess thrived, helping to create iconic venues and becoming one of the most influential voices in Australia’s bar and restaurant scene. But over time she realised that the industry she loved had its own dysfunctions: greed, ego, sexual harassment, exploitation and a never-ending fetishisation of Asian food culture. And Jess wasn’t one to hold her tongue. Fierce, funny and razor-sharp, Raised by Wolves is a potent coming-of-age story from a savage new voice.