Does This Taste Funny, New West?

“Oh god, not this question!”

We’re barely 15 seconds into the interview, and I’m already laughing as Ali Hassan warmly introduces himself—after I’ve asked for his name, of course—he humorously feigns struggle as he spells it out “for the record” for me.

Hassan is not only a standup comic, he’s a standup guy—incredibly friendly and easy to talk to: like the friend you haven’t seen for months, but when you do, you’re chatting about everything like no time has passed.

As if the comedian title wasn’t enough, he’s worn all sorts of hats: podcast host, actor, author (he shared screen time with Jay Baruchel and Eugene Levy in Goon and is also on Run the Burbs on CBC), and cook.

Oh, and he’s also a former IT consultant—but it’s probably best you don’t ask him to help you with your tech problems.

“The world’s worst IT consultant. Those are the words of my colleagues, not just me,” he tells The Anchor, adding that he got into the job for all the wrong reasons.

His friends talked him into it after he left his masters degree in business (MBA) program. While working in Chicago, Hassan said there were red flags that would pop up like clockwork.

“[My co-workers] were like, ‘Did you read Computer World this weekend? Did you read that issue?’ And I’m like, ‘No. I would never do that. I read a food and wine magazine this weekend, learned how to make a blueberry crumble that Martha Stewart was a fan of.’ It was like talking a completely different language.’”

Then he was laid off—just before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. “Which was good, because no one was really looking for an ‘Ali Hassan’ to hire in the US,” he explains of his choice to return home to Canada. He restarted his MBA and decided to go into catering. While his professional life was going relatively well, he was also in an emotionally abusive relationship, which ended up serving as a springboard into his ambitions of scoring a cooking show for television.

“I thought, ‘Why don’t I try to do these open mics? These comedy open mics that would get me more confident in front of a studio audience?’ There’s nowhere else to really practice that … and then I fell in love with comedy.”

For those who work in the food industry—particularly catering—you’ll likely be familiar with how physically challenging the work can be. Hassan says his experience was no exception.

“You know how there’s tennis elbow? You can get ‘wok elbow.’ I was in my 30s and I hadn’t used the wok for maybe more than one dish—using it for myself. Now I have to make 40 mi-goreng noodle dishes tonight, one after the other, and I used to have my elbow in a brace. People were like, ‘Oh, what sport do you play?’ I go, ‘No, I make noodles,’” he says with a hearty laugh.

At one catering event, the client asked if he’d like to do some standup for 30 minutes. The client offered $1,500 for 30 minutes of work—and that led to many doors opening for Hassan. Fast forward to today, and we now have the Does This Taste Funny? tour: the show has 19 stops, and New West is the penultimate one this time around.

“This tour in a way is bringing food back into comedy, after I had to put it to the side,” Hassan says, adding that the COVID-19 pandemic brought some additional perspective to the way he sees comedy working, not just for himself, but for those who come to his shows—one of those learnings is tied to health and self-care.

“I found out I had all these things: gout, you know, and that’s what I get for a lifetime of eating and drinking well. But the one thing I don’t have is, my blood pressure has always been fine, and I believe that has a lot to do with getting on stage and having this catharsis, having a laugh and sharing it with groups of people. I think there’s something there … I think comedy is beneficial for your health. I think many of us discovered that over the pandemic, how much we needed laughter and connection.”

He also hopes people will see the beauty and comedy that’s inherent in food. “Many people will talk about how open and tolerant they are about new ideas, and then they watch someone put ketchup on their eggs and they’re like, ‘That friendship’s over, I want nothing to do with that.’ Food can bring up those kinds of things.”

As a nod to his show, we asked Hassan what kind of flavour he thought would be funny or humorous. While he notes that his show was named after a cartoon joke in which two cannibals are eating a clown when one turns to the other and asks, ‘Does this taste funny?’, he does give an answer: spice.

“80% of the time, I’m reaching for some heat or one of the 12 different hot sauces I have in the house. Some are made by me, some are made by friends who give them as gifts.”

If you’d like to grab tickets to Hassan’s show— Wednesday, April 19 at the Anvil Centre—you can do so here.