E1 – Satay and the Myth of Malaysian Cuisine

Hosted by Dr Noby Leong and Philip Gibson
Produced by Dr Noby Leong and Philip Gibson
Sound Design by Jack Barr

Satay? Okay! is produced by Kopi Productions Limited and supported by the Golden Chopsticks Scholarship, by the Oxford Cultural Collective Trust

Malaysia’s Culinary Heritage – The Best of Authentic Traditional Recipes (2021), Kalsom Taib

Satay on Bayon Temple Relief – Alamy

Please note that this transcript may contain errors and typos

Welcome to Satay? Okay! A podcast about the foods
that have shaped Malaysia. I’m Dr Noby Leong,
scientist, food writer and broadcaster. And I’m
Philip Gibson, photographer and grill master.
And in this series, we explore the history, cultures
and cuisines of Malaysia. In today’s episode,
we take a look at satay and the myth of Malaysian
cuisine. So grab a seat and join us for satay.
Okay. It’s episode one. Indeed, here we f***.
Hang on, can you bleep that out? I’m really excited
to kick off this series, Philip. Satay okay.
Okay indeed. All about Malaysian food and by
extension its history and culture. And we’re
gonna be looking at the stories behind Malaysia’s
most iconic foods. So think about our namesake,
satay, think durian, blachan, sambal, laksa,
kueh, all of those foods that are famous across
Malaysia and also Southeast Asia and the world.
Sure. But they’re more than just food. Behind
each of them is a story, a story of love, of
war, relationships, money, greed, piracy, sultans.
Yeah, I think doing all of the research for this
show, I was amazed by, well, we do go into a
great deal of depth. You are going to come out
of this with honorary degrees in Malaysian history,
I think. But yeah, it’s exciting, though. There’s
going to be a lot of Game of Thrones analogies.
Cytus in your future PhD, please. That’d be great.
So food is really a gateway into the past, and
whether you’re new to Malaysian food or whether
you’re a bonafide Malaysian chef, this is the
series for you. In every episode, we’re going
to take a look at one food, and that becomes
our symbol that connects us with the past and
the people today. We’ll explore why that food
is important, where and when in history it comes
from, and its significance today. But it’s not
just us talking, we’ll also be hearing from some
amazing guests. Food writers, cultural custodians,
chefs, who all share their insights on the food
history and culture of today. But before we get
into this episode, we should probably do some
introductions. Sure. Who am I? Who are we? I
mean, I guess this whole podcast came about as
a bit of an identity crisis for you. So, you
know, who are you Nobby Leong? Okay. So if I
have to give my law, I am a Malaysian born, Australian
raised, but now Scottish resident. Farms to table.
It’s a very long distance to get from that particular
farm to this particular table. The carbon footprint
is immense. So much. I began my career as a scientist
actually so I’ve got a PhD in chemistry and what
I loved most about chemistry was that the best
analogy for chemistry is food. Sure. because
the kitchen is basically just like the lab and
it’s that classic joke of just don’t lick the
spoon. Okay. Yeah, I mean, I guess you’re following
recipes when you’re making stuff, aren’t you?
Or you’re developing recipes, I guess. Yeah,
yeah. If you’re discovering something. Yeah,
they’re very, very similar. But after being a
research scientist for five years, I became a
science communicator and also now a food writer.
So I’ve done lots of different things in media,
whether that be broadcast media, YouTube, et
cetera, et cetera. So I really love… talking
about science and food, really. And who are you,
Philip? Who am I? I am Philip Gibson. I’m a photographer.
I’m from Scotland. I first met Nobby just over
years ago. I went out to Australia in
where I met Nobby’s family and was lucky enough
to be welcomed into the family and… eat at
their dinner table every weekend. Over the course
of the four years that I lived in Australia,
Nobby’s mum would cook a whole host of meals,
probably more often than not Malaysian dishes.
And so there’s a Scottish person getting introduced
to this nyonya curry which, for those that don’t
know, it’s… It’s like chicken and potatoes.
in a curry gravy. Sure, thanks Nobby. But it
served with rice and so I was like, double carb,
what is this? Because you know, growing up in
my house where, you know, we ate fairly ordinary
food but it was never so radical to have two
types of carbohydrates. You’re from the country
that does a crisp sandwich. Oh right, yeah. Okay.
I stand corrected. Sure. But maybe not too hot
carbs. I don’t know anyway. Yeah, that was great.
But you know, among that so many other kinds
of dishes. But I’ve been lucky enough to go over
to Malaysia a couple of times now and eat the
food in the country where it comes from. And
that has been an exceptional experience in its
own right. So working with Nobby on this project,
Nobby’s been doing the interviews and been…
showing me around and I’ve been doing my best
to photograph them. So along with this podcast,
there will be plenty of photographic imagery
to go along with it to kind of visualise all
of the stuff we’re talking about. And they’ll
be on our socials at SarteoOK as well as our
website. So I guess I’m providing that more family
heritage viewpoint for this podcast. And Philip,
you’ve got that documentary eye. Sure. Thank
you for not saying colonial. Yeah, it’s… I…
I just think it’s important that we’re telling
the story through spoken word and all the rest
of it, but I think it’s a helpful record as well
to photograph a country that is rapidly developing.
It’s changing. What we, I think, learned when
we’re over there is that we’re kind of on the
brink. A lot of people who are still alive today
were around during Malaysia’s independence from
Britain in the early s. And over their lifetime,
that country has completely transformed. And
I’m really, really excited to share those stories.
So the reason why we are making this podcast
and why we’re doing this deep dive into Malaysian
food culture and history is basically because
product of grief. So I’m going to very, very
quickly trauma dump on our guest, Philip, and
I hope they don’t mind. You’ve waited about five
minutes. I think that’s pretty good going. Yeah,
that’s pretty not bad. So a few years ago, my
mother died. We were very close to each other.
And food was always a really big part of our
relationship. And so after she died, I was super
desperate to hang on to her memory. And so I
just started cooking a lot. I cooked all the
dishes that I could remember. I was asking my
siblings about foods that they remembered. I
was writing down all these recipes. And then
I had this realization that I actually had no
idea where the food came from. I kind of knew
about my own family’s traditions, but I didn’t
really know how they fit into the broader Malaysian
culture. So my family are Chinese Malaysian,
and we’ve also got what we call Nyonya heritage,
and we’ll explore that in this series. But beyond
that, it was like, well, what am I? So that triggered
an identity crisis, and I wanted to know more
about my family, where we come from, what Malaysia
is, its history, the many different cultures,
because I just didn’t know any of it. As I said,
I grew up in Australia. My education was not
Malaysian. Right. And so I felt like I had a
huge amount of information to learn about where
I came from. Yeah, I would say at this point
you have managed to buy probably just about every
single Malaysian book. Uh -huh. Ever published.
I own quite a few. It’s quite the library. Yeah.
Of history books, of cookbooks, everything that
I could get my hand on. What I actually realized
is that I wanted to kind of like consume Malaysian
media in a really digestible way, but that also
told that complete history of Malaysia and its
people. Right. I wanted something fun, but quite
in -depth. Right, okay. And so that’s what I’m
hoping this podcast gives people. And if you’re
listening to this, I hope you want that too.
Yeah, fingers crossed. So this podcast is the
product of years of investigation to cure my
identity crisis, and it’s basically a product
of grief. So very happy days, Philo. Yeah, it
is. I would like to add that we had lots of fun
making this, so it’s not ultimate glimpses. Yeah,
and I hope that’s evident when you hear the fantastic
interviews that we’ve got lined up for you. Yeah,
no, they really are exceptional. So let’s get
into this episode, and today I want to lay the
groundwork for this season and what better way
to lay the groundwork with one of my favorite
foods, satay. And I kind of think it’s most people’s
first encounter with Malaysian food, whether
they know it or not. First, Philip though, I
need to kind of get something off my chest because
it infuriates me to no end. I refer, or when
anyone refers to satay, I am talking about meat
on a stick. I am not talking about peanut sauce.
Okay. Satay is the stick, satay sauce is a completely
different thing. that is not intrinsic to what
satay is. So you’re talking about when you go
into a gastropub and you see what basically is
like a chicken curry effectively, but they’re
not saying that it’s a korma. They’re saying
it’s a chicken satay curry or something like
that. Yeah. Right. Okay. So it’s… If there
are no sticks involved, it is not satay. Right.
It’s chicken and a peanut sauce. Okay. Yeah.
That’s… Some might think of that as pedantic,
but I think you’re well within your right. I
think we’ve all got our… food battles we’re
willing to fight on, and satay is mine. Well,
we have called the podcast satay, okay. Exactly.
You know, like some people, they can’t stand
it when they say chai tea. Oh, right, because
it’s just tea tea. Or naan bread. I cannot stand
satay being synonymous with just peanuts. Well,
leave us a comment if you agree, or what your
food peeves are. Indeed. So there are many different
versions of satay that can be found around Malaysia.
You’ve got your classic chicken or beef. But
there are also Chinese versions, which are pork
pieces, but also the offal. You can serve it
with peanut sauce, with peanut sauce tinged with
starfruit, or you actually don’t need to serve
it with peanut sauce at all. It’s not necessarily
served like that all the time. And in Malacca,
which is where I was born, there’s also a version
called Satay Chalup, which is kind of like a
cross between satay and Chinese hotpot, where
you get this like… cauldron of boiling sauce
in the center of the table and then you dip your
satay sticks into it. Is that sauce peanut sauce?
I’ve actually never had satay a lot because my
family really is fundamentally against it. I
think they see this like cauldron of sauce in
the middle of a public restaurant as like unhygienic
and they’re like I don’t know how long that sauce
been sitting there for I don’t want to eat that.
So we never eat it. I mean you get like master
stocks in certain places which you know is supposed
to be the whole point like the mother sauce or
whatever but yeah I get that. I also think this
is a bit of an unraveling of how opinionated
Malaysians are about food and how they want to
eat it. We are so opinionated we have very very
specific taste buds and it’s hard to get that
across to people. unless you actually visit Malaysians
and start talking to locals. Sure. Like they
will be like, oh, I don’t like Penang’s version
because of this very subtle difference that’s
imperceptible to a non -Malaysian. Yeah, I think
we should get across the point that Malaysians,
certainly to me anyway, are the most opinionated
people when it comes to food. Yeah, I think it’s
something that you notice when I’m talking with
other Malaysians or some Malaysian friends, we’ll
just sit at the dining table talking about…
I don’t know, dull and the very many different
variations why we do or don’t like them. It’s
wild. I think I’ve never met. probably a group
of people from a place in the world that are
so outspoken and and yeah particular and pedantic
about how they expect their food to be served
to the point that you know when a waiter or waitress
or whatever comes over to your table and says
oh is everything okay with the food yeah Malaysians
are definitely going to tell them what’s wrong
with it yeah too salty too sweet doesn’t have
enough of this oh why have you cooked like that
oh this is burnt you need to send this back no
you try this do you try are you proud to serve
this i’ve witnessed these exchanges happening
in Malaysian restaurants and i sat there clutching
my pearls going like, oh, I’m so British, I’m
supposed to just say yes, everything’s fine.
And just kind of dismiss them immediately because
you don’t want any attention on you. So it’s
just culturally just a very different thing.
Yeah. And I think that’s kind of why we’re doing
this podcast where food is our gateway. Because
so many Malaysians and Southeast Asians and Asians
in general are so obsessed with food that that
becomes the perfect conduit to learn about our
culture. Right. So when it comes to satay and
where it actually came from, there’s lots of
different theories of how it got to Malaysia.
One of them is that satay is based on Middle
Eastern kebabs, and people think that they were
introduced to India through historical trading,
because those regions are next to each other,
and then Indians brought it over to Malaysia
through historic maritime trade. Another possibility
is that satay comes from Cambodia. So there’s
a freeze at the Bayon temple in Cambodia, and
so there’s this stone relief, and you can look
this up online, where it looks like two people
grilling satays over flames. Right. And it’s
amazing that this is immortalized in a temple.
Someone carved this in stone. And so the possibility
is that it originated in Cambodia and then made
its way south to Malaysia from there. Sure. And
then the other possibility is that Malaysians
themselves invented it, because… What is more
primal than meat on a stick? Sure, right. Yeah,
yeah, yeah. I would imagine that, you know, meat
on a stick is one of those things that most probably,
wherever humans have gone, they’ve probably put
meat on a stick. Makes sense. Yeah, yeah. The
thing about satay though, even though it’s this
quintessentially Malaysian food, it’s also quintessentially
Singaporean. Right. It’s also quintessentially
Indonesian, and it’s kind of quintessentially
Southeast Asian in general. Okay. And so when
we start to unpick iconic dishes like satay,
it kind of makes you ask yourself, what even
is Malaysian food? Okay, yeah, yeah. And when
I asked myself that question, I realised that
most of what I’d learnt from my family or from
the media was just a really small slither of
insight into the kind of total, complex, broad
history and culture of the country. Sure. And
that’s what the series is all about. Now I wanna
lay some groundwork, because I think everyone’s
got different levels of understanding of Malaysia.
There are some people like me, and so they’ve
got a strong understanding. There are some people
that are totally new, and I realised just how
obscure Malaysia is as a country. When I first
moved to Scotland, this was like five, six years
ago, and I would tell people, oh, you know, I
was born in Malaysia, and it’s like time froze.
I could hear people’s brains go into overdrive
because they were trying to figure out where
Malaysia is on a map. Yeah, trying not to look
ignorant. Yeah, yeah. And so I kind of didn’t
know what was happening for the first few times
that this happened, but then I realized that,
oh, I’m from an obscure country. And I never
really realized that because in Australia, you’re
closer and there’s more Malaysians. Yeah, there’s
Malaysian celebrities, there’s Singaporean celebrities.
and Malaysian food culture is really embedded
in Australia as well. Right. But obviously that’s
not the case everywhere. So let’s kick things
off by looking at three common misconceptions
about Malaysia, and hopefully that’ll give us
all of us the same groundwork to start from.
So, Philip, misconception number one. Malaysia
is a peninsula. Well, half of it is. Half of
it is, but not… Totally. So in this series,
we’re going to use a lot of maps. Yes, indeed.
I think it’s definitely advisable that our listeners
do try to get near a computer and get on Google
Maps or something like that, because we are going
to be jumping around not just Malaysia, but also
a lot of its neighboring countries. Indeed. Yeah.
And so Malaysia, though, has two parts. We have
the peninsula. That’s where the capital city
of Kuala Lumpur is. That’s where some of the
really historically important cities like Penang
and Malacca are. But there’s also this other
half, which is on Borneo. So Borneo is not a
country. Yeah, I think that’s something that
most people maybe in the UK… If they’ve heard
of Borneo, they just assume that it is an island
state in its own right. Full of hunkies. Full
of orangutans. Yeah. And that’s where David Attenborough
lives. Constantly going. Yeah. For to just go
and see these massive caves and huge limestone
kind of peaks and stuff like that. So Borneo
is an island. It’s east of the Malay Peninsula.
Right. The southern two thirds are part of Indonesia,
most of the top third is part of Malaysia, and
then there’s this small little bit of the north
that’s part of Brunei. Well not part of, it is
Brunei. Sure. So three countries form Borneo.
So Malaysia has an east part and a west part.
The Borneo part and the peninsula part. And in
this season we will be exploring only the peninsula.
There is a lot to tell about Borneo and I think
we will… give our listeners a breather after
the first episodes of the season to digest
what we have explained to them and then we will
give Borneo a chance to sing in season two. How
those two parts came together to form a country
is very fascinating and as you’ll see throughout
this series it’s messy and a lot to do with some
interfering colonialists. Yes. Misconception
number two. Someone from Malaysia is called Malay.
So I am mistaken for being Malay all the time,
even though I have never introduced myself as
Malay. People will just automatically assume
that I’m Malay, but that’s not the case. No.
So Malay is an ethnicity and it’s a culture,
but it’s not a nationality. Someone from Malaysia,
the general term is Malaysian. Right. So I am
Chinese Malaysian because my heritage is Chinese.
Right. There are Singaporean Malays, there are
Indonesian Malays, also Thai Malays, probably
in the Philippines as well. Sure. So… It’s
a large ethnic group. Yeah. Yeah, really large.
And I think it’s important to specify this because
Malaysia has so many different cultures. So if
you were to read any bit of media, most of them
will say that Malaysia is a melting pot of Malay,
Chinese and Indian. Sure. Not… incorrect, but
definitely gives a false impression of the country.
Right. So you have those three major groups,
but you also have indigenous people. Yeah, which
make up more than % of the population. You’ve
got the Orang -Aslees on the Malay Peninsula,
you’ve got Dyaks and Sarawak, and a range of
dozens and dozens of different indigenous groups.
You’ve also got Eurasians, you’ve got what we
call Peranakans. The list goes on. All of these
cultures are very distinct from each other and
often they’re very, very old. Like they’ve been
in Malaysia for quite some time. These aren’t
new migrant groups per se. All of these groups
have been here before independence. And some
of these have been around for thousands and thousands
of years. The final misconception is Malaysian
cuisine is the best in the world. Okay, who’s
saying that? Well… I am. Right. People are.
Okay. The internet. And I am not disagreeing
that the food of Malaysia is excellent because
I mean I am obviously biased and I eat every
day so I think it’s freaking phenomenal. Sure.
But the misconception isn’t that it’s the best
in the world, it’s that there’s such a thing
as Malaysian cuisine. Right. And just like satay,
I will fight to the death anyone. because I do
not believe there is such a thing as Malaysian
cuisine. So Malaysia itself has only existed
since Sure. The cold concept, the nation
is very, very, very new. And if we think about
the definition of a cuisine, I think there needs
to be some sort of unifying food culture that’s
generally practiced by most of the country. Right.
And while there are definitely certain dishes
and flavor profiles that all Malaysians enjoy,
The way that Malaysians themselves categorise
the food is very distinct. We never, in our own
country, would say, oh, this is a Malaysian dish.
We only really do that to outsiders. Right, okay.
I only really talk about Malaysian food, quote
unquote, when I’m in like a western country.
Right, so you’re spreading a false gospel here
then. I… necessarily in some ways out of convenience.
Okay. But I really try not to say Malaysian cuisine.
So what we do though have are many different
cultural groups with their own cuisine. Right.
So we’ve got Malay cuisine, Chinese cuisine,
Indian cuisine, and there are overlaps between
those but they’re very very distinct from each
other. And I want to say that if you’re ever
in Malaysia… and you do come across a restaurant
that says they specialise in authentic Malaysian
food or whatever, that is a red flag. That restaurant
is targeted specifically to tourists. Sure, okay.
You want to be looking for certain signage above
the restaurant, is it…? Yeah, like if you’re
in Malaysia, restaurants will promote themselves
either by the dish that they specialise in, like
a laksa restaurant, or by the culture. like a
Chinese Peranakan restaurant for instance. Just
to kind of give people an idea of some of these
differences, so like Malay, this is a cuisine
that is heavily heavily influenced by Islam.
Everything that Malays eat must be halal. Sure.
So you have a lot of like rice -based dishes,
lots of curries and stews. Chicken and beef are
the main meats, but you won’t see any pork. Sure.
Versus Chinese people, we freaking love pork.
I love pork. And yeah, we have rice too, but
we also have noodles and a lot of soybean products
like soy sauce, tofu, things like that. And then
for Indian food, that’s dominated by Hindu religion.
So you’re not going to have beef, but you can
have lamb. Right. And you also have a lot of
breads that form the basis of Indian food. So
there’s just sort of some of the distinctions.
And I think what’s interesting about Malaysia
is that even though these cultures have existed,
coexisted for hundreds of years, they have actually
managed to remain pretty distinct. Do you remember
what your first impressions of Malaysian food
are? Whether or not you thought it was cuisine,
whether or not you had any impression of what
the dishes were or the flavors were? I think
I’m probably a good person to ask from the point
of view that I would also be one of those people
whose brain would have been ticking over going,
where is Malaysia? So yeah, I mean satay maybe,
but I don’t know that I would have… necessarily
assumed that that was Malaysian. I think, much
as you’ve said, I would have just kind of said,
oh, that’s an East Asian dish, like South East
Asian dish or whatever. But it’s kind of like
a kebab, you know, probably what I would have
thought. It was only really, I think, when I
got to Australia, as I say, and sat at your family
dining table and had the nyonya curry, for example,
that I was like, oh, OK, right, this is curry.
So it’s Indian to me. But then. I’m eating it
in a Chinese woman’s house. So yeah, I… Yeah,
because Indian curries are different to a Malay
curry, different to a Nyonya curry. Yeah, I’m
not expert enough to tell you how. I mean, as
far as I’m concerned, it’s a reddy brown colour.
It’s got a lot of those sorts of kind of same
spices from turmeric and cumin and coriander
and things like that through it. But I don’t
know what makes it… Nyonya versus what would
be what over in the UK, which of course, we’re
a curry loving nation What we assume is an Indian
curry. So I’ll give you a very brief understanding
of what I think are the differences between a
Malay and Nyonya curry versus an Indian curry.
Okay. One is the types of spices used And I think
Indian curries lean into earthier spices like
your turmeric, cumin, coriander. Right. But I
think Malay and Yonya curries lean more into
floral spices like lemongrass, galangal, that
sort of thing. Okay. So two very distinct flavor
profiles. There’s also a big difference in how
they’re cooked. So Indian curries, I think that
they lean more towards using whole spices and
spice powders. Right. But I think for Malay and
Yonya, you’re more likely to see spice powders.
pastes being used and that can change the whole
texture or experience of the dish. It was only
I think when I got over to Malaysia actually
and was eating Malay food properly was that I
was kind of caught off guard by how spicy it
is. So spicy. There’s a lot of chilies used in
a lot of these spice pastes that you’re talking
about. Okay so as we see the food of Malaysia
or you can say Malaysia’s cuisines, plural, emphasizing
the zzz. Sure. That’s so complex. And we wanted
to delve deeper into what this food is, so we
spoke to a true matriarch. of Malaysian food.
Now this woman, she is older than Malaysia itself.
So remember, Malaysia got independence in
She’s older than that. She is a cultural custodian
of the cuisines of Malaysia. She’s written multiple
cookbooks, and she recently took home a Gorman
Award in which is sort of the Oscars of
food. Her name is Kowsum Tay, and one of my favourite
books of hers is Malaysia’s Culinary Heritage.
This book features more than traditional
recipes that have been enshrined in the National
Heritage Act of So if there’s anybody that’s
going to be able to tell us about Malaysian food,
how important it is, what it means and what it
is, it’s Kalsum Taib. We met at her house in
Kuala Lumpur and I’m so excited to share this
interview with you about what Malaysian food
is from a true culinary custodian. My name is
Kalsum Taib. I’m very old already. I was born
in Muah, a small little town in Johor in August
during the Japanese occupation, well before
you were born, yeah? Kowsum Tabe is affectionately
known as Auntie Chom and I kick -started things
by asking her, what is Malaysian food? Well,
I would say it is… It is a diverse food. You
can get influences from all cultures. It depends
what you want to eat. Many people think Malaysian
food is just Malay food. They think it is pedas,
spicy. They think it is not halal, whereas it
is not. You see, it can fit all palates, especially
if you go to the street stalls, the hawker stalls,
the satay, grilling. You have the nasi ayam,
chicken rice. You can have the Kelantan food,
nasi ulam, nasi dagang, laksam. And yet you can
have chicken chop and you have different types
of laksam all over the world from all corners
of the world that you can have in Malaysia. So
Malaysian food is many things and in some ways
defies classification. But before getting into
the nitty -gritty, I asked Kalsum about growing
up in Malaysia and the role of food in her life.
I received my education at several schools in
Johor, Malacca and Kuala Lumpur as my father
was a civil servant and he was posted to all
over the places. I graduated with a BA Honours
in History and a Diploma in Education from the
University of Malaya. I started my career as
a teacher because those days I was bonded. We
cannot get any other scholarships except as teaching
scholarships. So I had to work for five years
as a teacher and was posted to several places.
But after five years, I left and decided to enter
the private sector. Though she worked in the
private sector, food was always important to
her. I come from a family of cooks. My great
-grandfather had the title Kenosho of food. And
he had Indian chefs, Turkish chefs, Malays chefs,
Chinese chefs. So then my grandmother, his daughter
was also a cook, inherited from him. So with
that, naturally my mother was also a cook. And
she had… a recipe, handwritten recipe, of all
the recipes she had collected over the years
from her grandmother. So, naturally, I add all
this good food that sometimes you never hear,
normal people don’t hear. Because my family came
from the first Majibesar of Johor who used to
travel with the Sultan and also cooks. He had
a big kitchen, you know, in his house at Bukit
Senyum. And then we grew up. with that food,
so of course my taste buds have got this, I called
it my taste bud is very naughty. It knows, it
wants to taste good food all the time. While
cooking was always a big feature of her life,
she didn’t start writing cookbooks until much
later. I retired in December traveled a
bit. then decided what I wanted to do. I was
not the type to sit still. So I decided to write.
I’m an armchair cook. I don’t really cook, cook.
So I roped in my cousin, Hamidah Abdul Hamid,
who is an excellent writer. She’s pretty, married
young, started cooking at an early age of
you know. So she was trained by her mother, her
grandmother. So together, we decided to partner
and do Johor Palit. You need two hands to clap,
right hand, left hand, and together we could
make beautiful music together. Kalsum’s passion
comes from a motivation to preserve her culture,
and she gave me an example of this passion by
recounting a story about a snack food called
Kueh. And I wanted to preserve. Let me tell you
an example. My paternal grandmother was an excellent
cook. She makes the best kueh, you know, called
kueh kepal. It’s a traditional kueh inherited
from the boogies. My grandfather was boogies,
my grandmother was Javanese, so she makes the
best kueh kepal, which is a boogies kueh, you
know. And it was my father’s favorite. Every
time my father comes, she will bake it ready,
put it in the cream cracker, empty tin, hide
it under the bed for my father to come. When
I wanted to do Johor Pallet, I didn’t have the
recipe and I was stressed out. So I went through
Johor together with my partner Amida to find
who could cook this kueh kepal. And we found
her. That taught me a lesson. If I don’t preserve
these recipes, then it will be gone forever,
for the next generation. Not to say you’re going
to cope, you know, but at least you have it in
the book for preservation, for future generations
to come. So I wanted to preserve the recipes
for the present generation and future generations
to come. Aside from being important to her from
a personal standpoint, Kowsum Tabe talks about
the importance of food to our understanding of
Malaysia as a whole. You see, from the food,
you go back to the past. How did this food come
to be? Like botok -botok is also a traditional
dish, gazetted. It is fish smothered with ulam,
all types of ulam, you know, and also with gravy.
Fish paste, and then it is steamed. That’s not
Malay. That is Javanese. You know, it’s Javanese.
And they cook it because they have a lot of ulam
grown. They have lots of banana trees. So when
they came, a lot of them came. The Javanese came
to work, workers in Johor especially. So they
brought in their food. So then some of them married,
Malays, so they introduced the food, we inherited
it, modified it. So we go back to the past, to
the history, that the British were here, the
Portuguese were here, the Dutch were here, you
know, Ristafel, the Koreas, the Tiffany, from
the Dutch heritage. So food is the one that will
tell you from history. From here, I can tell
you the history of the past. That is calcium
tape. So, so clear from her how important food
is. And in terms of Malaysia, in her own words,
I guess she’s saying that Malaysian food, Malaysian
cuisines, they’re kind of everything. It’s multifaceted.
It’s a product of so many different influences.
And there’s so many different flavor profiles
that can be found within this one country. Yeah.
And she also referred to a great deal of other
kind of ethnic groups that have contributed to
this. She’s talking about Buddhist, Javanese,
which are from kind of neighboring Indonesia
and those islands around the peninsula of Malaysia.
It does kind of go to show that whole melting
pot. And I think what I loved most about listening
to her is her passion. And it’s clear that food
is important to her, not just from that family
point of view. but from that historical point
of view as well. She is a history teacher but
now also a food writer and she’s married those
two worlds together and she can see how important
it is to preserve our food cultures. because
they kind of tell us who we are and where we
came from. Sure. I mean, yeah, with her background
in history for definitely. It’s she spoke so
enthusiastically and passionately about it. We
were at her house for four or five hours or something.
Yeah. And we could have spent days there just
listening to her talk and these anecdotes and
these stories of her life, basically utterly
fascinating. And we’ll hear more from her in
a later episode. Yeah, indeed. And I think what
was perhaps also really great about Cows and
Tapes that She just hasn’t stopped in life. Yeah,
this was her first podcast recording, and her
producer was at the house when we were there,
who’s helping her do all of this, what, Instagram
reels and TikToks and stuff like that? Yeah,
YouTube. You know, again, to remind you, she’s,
what, and just still going for it. Still
just spreading the gospel, I think, for one of
a better way of putting it. And, you know, the
two of you were sat down, like, chatting for,
what, a good hour and a half, almost two hours
or so. And she goes, oh, and so that was it.
And she shouts over to our producer who’s like
sitting at the back of this veranda and goes,
we need to do more of these. I love this. I can
talk for hours. And it was just that way where
she’s just kind of like, if you want to put a
microphone on me and ask me questions, I will
talk. Yeah. She’s a great storyteller. And I
really can’t wait to share with you part two
of her interview in a future episode because
she’s got such a rich story to tell. Yeah. But
yeah, that was just a taster and really just
to get us into this whole series and what it
is about. because our goal is to give you that
complete history of Malaysia through food. We’re
gonna take you back tens of thousands of years
to the arrival of the first peoples of Malaysia.
We’re gonna take you on a journey to the rise
of Malacca, those great trading sultanates of
the past. We’re gonna explore the arrival of
the first Europeans to the land. the many waves
of colonialism by Portuguese, Dutch, British
forces, and we’re going to make our way to independence
and the dawn of a modern Malaysia. And we’re
going to tell this whole story through food,
and we’ll see how the food that we eat today
connects us with Malaysia’s past and its people.
So in each episode we’re going to recap by looking
at our food symbol of the day, and today was
satay. It’s a dish that I think… feels so familiar
because it’s so ubiquitous around the world.
But as we look deeper, we can see that there’s
so much more to it, where it comes from, what
it represents. And I think that is reflective
of Malaysia. What is Malaysia? Where does it
come from? Yeah. I hope over the next couple
of episodes, our listeners are just as enthralled
as we were making this. If you are new to the
cuisine or if you are Malaysian yourself, I really
do hope that the stories we tell and the history
that we uncover really does kind of inspire you
to go out and eat. And to reflect when you’re
eating on just how all those ingredients came
to be so prominent. Eating thoughtfully. eating
thoughtfully. So we hope you’ve enjoyed today’s
episode. Thank you so much for tuning in and
I can’t thank you enough for starting this journey
with us. And also a big thank you to the Golden
Chopsticks Scholarship by the Oxford Cultural
Collective. They’ve really supported this project
and helped to get it off the ground. So I hope
you join us for the next episode where we’re
going to take you back. to where it all began,
to the arrival of those First Peoples tens of
thousands of years ago. We are talking durian
and the arrival of the First Peoples. So don’t
miss our next episode of Satay. Okay.