Dirty Linen - A Food Podcast with Dani Valent · A Deep in the Weeds Production

Jess Hite (Chef on the Ghan) - tasting the landscape

·28 min·1 clip

Jess says the Ghan is the route for travelers who want to explore and feel connected to Indigenous Australia.

1. Dirty Linen with Dani Valent focuses on Jess Hite, a Journey Beyond chef on the Ghan, and the food system behind the Adelaide-to-Darwin train. 2. Jess Hite is the guest chef, and Dani Valent is the host asking how the train feeds more than 250 passengers. 3. The episode asks how a moving train can serve meals that match the landscape, the route, and the guests' expectations. 4. Jess says she has been a chef for 15 years and left pubs, pizza places, and brewery work because she wanted something new. 5. She compares her old restaurant routine with train work that runs seven days on and seven days off. 6. She explains that Journey Beyond offered train kitchens instead of FIFO work, which made the job feel different from mine-site rosters. 7. Jess says train cooking lets her travel for work and see the same country that passengers are seeing. 8. She describes the Ghan menu as region-specific, with ingredients that change as the train moves through different landscapes. 9. She gives mangoes as the example for the tropical north on the Adelaide-to-Darwin run. 10. She says some menus carry one ingredient through an entree, main, and dessert, and some cocktails also follow the route. 11. Jess notes that international travelers often react strongly to native ingredients such as kangaroo and buffalo. 12. She tells a story about serving kangaroo to a guest on the Great Southern after a disrupted trip left no kangaroo on the printed menu. 13. She describes kangaroo as a fillet grilled rare and sometimes rolled in saltbush dukkah from Creative Native. 14. She says Creative Native is an Aboriginal-owned company that supplies spices and sauces made with native Australian ingredients. 15. Jess explains that the Ghan kitchens are tiny, with a long galley, numbered cupboards, and three chefs working around 100 guests in one section. 16. She says the crew stand with their legs wide apart on the moving train and sometimes fall into one another while stabilizing plates and drinks. 17. Jess says the Ghan feels like the train that most connects passengers to the Australian landscape, Australian people, and Indigenous Australia. 18. Her tone is practical and conversational, and Dani Valent pushes for logistics, ingredients, and guest reactions rather than a formal sit-down. 19. People interested in train travel, native ingredients, and remote-area food. 20. Listeners wanting celebrity gossip or high-drama conflict.

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from Dirty Linen - A Food Podcast with Dani Valent