Lisa Ling on why her new food docuseries ‘Take Out’ feels ‘urgent’

nypost.com:

attacks on the Asian American community – particularly our elders – I think the need for people to acquaint themselves with this culture, this food, this history, is more important than ever,” Ling, 48, told The Post.

Premiering Thursday (Jan. 27) on HBO Max, the six-episode show follows journalist/TV host Ling as she journeys to different locations in the US, exploring the history of a different Asian American community there as well as restaurants and local cuisine.

In the opener, Ling eats shrimp gumbo in the Louisiana bayou and learns how the famous cuisine in that region is influenced by the Filipino American community.

Other episodes spotlight Bangladeshi food in New York City (the East Village) and the Korean American community in Virginia. “These days, even in the smallest towns, you’ll find sushi or Vietnamese food or Thai food, or maybe even Bangladeshi food,” she said. “But the stories behind these restaurants, these immigrant stories, are not known in America — and the opportunity to pull back the curtain and go into the kitchens of these restaurants and learn their stories through the lens of this food that we’ve all come to love is really what the show is all about.”Ling, who is Asian American, and well-traveled — thanks to her other shows such as CNN’s “This Is Life With Lisa Ling” — said that over the course of filming “Take Out With Lisa Ling,” she learned plenty of new information. “I didn’t know that the first Asian Americans to settle in this country settled in the bayous of Louisiana.