I cannot tell you what my very first memory of Ashok Selvam is, because it probably took place while I was very drunk on soju in a karaoke room in Los Angeles’ Koreatown on my first ever work trip, almost ten years ago, at Eater. What I can tell you is that in the near-decade that I’ve known Chicago’s most dogged reporter, I’ve gotten to know one of the best humans, an incredible union organizer, and a person who is never afraid to call me — or anyone else — on my shit.
Even though he continues to insist on drinking Malört, I promise you that Ashok’s judgment is, otherwise, spot-on. Ashok’s sometimes-spiky exterior hides his soft heart and sharp wit. He is quick to hold the powerful to account while making space for those who have been marginalized. Our resident “Table Dad” keeps his cards close to the vest at times, but is quick to dole out his hard-earned wisdom when it’s needed, and that’s why he’s an essential part of the Ravenous team. I’m so proud to know him, and if this is your very first introduction to this James Beard Award-winning writer and consummate Bulls fan, hang on to your hat.
Amy McCarthy: Firstly and most importantly: Why Ravenous? Why now?
Ashok Selvam: I’ve been thinking about doing something like this for a while, but it’s a little daunting to do it by yourself. I don’t like working by myself. It sucks. You don’t have people that you admire, and you don’t have people to push you. I think I’m getting to the age where I want to give back. There’s the whole joke that I’m the “table dad” and always looking after people, but I do want to leave the places that I am in better shape than I found them. I have a lot of varied experience, and I want people to benefit from that.
Now, we have this really great motley crew of folks that I worked with before, whether at Eater or through the Vox Media Union, and the opportunity is so great. I am old, and I want to call my own shots and unleash what I know I can do. This is the situation that will bring the best results. Not only for myself, but for all of us, and hopefully a legion of folks to come.
What about worker-owned media is appealing to you? Why is it important to you for us to build this business in that way?
I come from a traditional news background where the ethics were a lot more cut-and-dried when it came to sponsors and pressures from PR. You basically told these firms to drop dead, that you weren’t going to move an inch. You don’t always want to be combative; sometimes these folks can be helpful, but it’s hard to parse. Especially when the lines are blurred.
I really appreciate that we all have a similar idea of what a story is, and what is news. We’re the folks actually doing the work, and we’re the ones that should be making the decisions, and that is just totally ignored in this fucking hellscape of media where everyone wants to maximize profit and do what’s easiest. I’m not saying we’re going to give 110% on every story, and there will definitely need to be some silliness to keep everyone’s sanity, but we’re in the best position to inform the public. We know what’s best, and it’s about time that we have a chance to show it.
To your earlier point, you’ve done so many different types of work in journalism and covered so many diverse beats. You are also, as you said, old and have been around forever. What have you seen change in the industry over the course of your career? For better and for worse?
No one calls a source anymore on a story. It’s just a rat race to get something up first, and then the thought is we can fill in the blanks later. There’s a belief that we don’t need to hear what the sources have to say, and that’s just utter, utter crap. I know a lot of it is because we're in the age of social media statements and canned garbage, and sometimes that's all you'll get from when you call someone back. But it's still your job. It's also our job to kind of push people into saying cool shit, and to make them think about things in different ways, and that's a service to the reader. I think the art of the interview is almost extinct.
Yeah, it sucks.
It bums me out! I love talking to people in person. I love talking to people on the phone. The COVID years, when everyone decided to shift to Zoom and Google Meet, that was cool because you could do face-to-face interviews with people all over the world. That’s for the betterment of the world.
Ravenous is a worker-owned food culture publication founded by five journalists who are tired of toothless food journalism. With more than 30 years of combined experience in the industry, we're all keenly aware of why a place like Ravenous is so needed in this moment: corporate food media is broken, and worker-owned publications are the future.
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To shift the focus back to Ashok, who even are you? What’s your background, and how does that inform what you want to do at Ravenous?
I hate talking about myself, and I can probably blame what’s going on in media for that — everyone’s an individual brand, and I feel very uncomfortable because you're always told you're not supposed to be part of a story. But I grew up in Chicago. My parents are both immigrants from Bangalore; they were both physicians who met in medical school. They did not have an arranged marriage. They rebelled and had a love match, which is still sending shockwaves through the Selvam family in multiple hemispheres and time zones.
They came here. They lived in New York, and they lived in Milwaukee. I was one year away from being a Milwaukee baby, but fortunately, I’m a Bears fan, not a Packers fan. Chicago is a huge sports town, and it was a good way for me to ground myself and figure out, ‘Oh, that's American, I'm American too.’ I like baseball and football and basketball. Basketball is probably what shaped me the most because how can you grow up in Chicago in the ‘90s and not be a Bulls fan?
Not to be morbid, but what would your last meal be?
It has to be something with meat because meat was such a taboo in our family. We ate meat, but it was almost this guilt. Why is there meat in the house? We didn’t eat steak because none of us knew how to prepare steak, so that was very exotic. So was bacon, we rarely had breakfast meats. The thing I love most, and maybe this will kind of endear you as a Texan, is barbecue ribs. They’re like my favorite food. There’s a Chicago-style barbecue rib, and it’s not made on a smoker. They’re broiler ribs. It could be dry-rubbed, it could be sauced.
The oven rib is a totally valid thing! Who didn’t grow up with oven ribs?
Exactly. I grew up with that. Nobody had a rig for 20-hour smoking or whatever back then.
Anyway, back to the menu.
I'm a big pie guy, and we used to have a chain in the Midwest called Baker Square. The French silk, which is basically a chocolate mousse with whipped cream and chocolate? That’s my jam. My sister and I used to get into fights over what pie to get from Baker Square. To drink, I’d have to go with a glass of prosecco, and finish it all off with a shot of —
Don’t say it.
Chase it with a, you know, shot of Malört.
Of course.
I was going to sneak Malört into this conversation and you knew it.
I’m honestly shocked it took 14 minutes for that to happen. Okay, before you get going on Malört any longer, let’s wrap this up with your most controversial food opinion.
Fake meat is an abomination. Any fake meat. You don’t need that processed bullshit, just eat a vegetable. If you’re vegetarian or vegan, do it for the vegetables! You're a subhuman if you're excited about what Beyond Meat is doing. I don’t want to hear if you had this great Impossible whatever. Shut up. They should be banned from every baseball park.
