I used to watch them spin their alchemy in the kitchen as a child. Ah Lan, Vahli, Mum, Aunty Ruth & Granny were probably the most pivotal women in my young life… at least where the culinary arts were concerned.
My earliest perch was outside…. like a peeping tom I watched their figures spinning their magic through the open door of the kitchen. Sometimes their actions mysterious as they disappeared from sight. Then they would appear again with some ingredient they prepared out of sight. I would think to myself, “It looked like this and then it changed… how did that happen?”
It was only at the age of 7 or 8 that I dared venture into the kitchen to absorb more fully what actually transpired in there. All the ingredients and their preparation was like an elaborate pre-show… the main event was the actual cooking of the dish. It is the earliest theatre I recalled experiencing… outside of the theater.
And like all alchemists, each one had their tricks and techniques to make food taste a certain way. It was from them I learned that exact amounts was more often trumped by “feel” to make a dish soar.
I observed this as well at the street stalls where the cooks were usually of the masculine gender. They had their tricks too. One could order the same dish from two different street vendors and there would be subtle differences in taste.
In the street there was also the added theatrics of “the dance” as they cooked. The rhythm of the ladle hitting the pan punctuated the sizzle of the food. The way they handled their instruments or the the flourish of how an ingredient was thrown into the mix often made a meal on the street a total experience. This was part of their “signature” so to speak. Though it has to be said that on occasion the experience was more style than substance.
That substance in the signature was in the taste… the final audience participation part of this theatre. It was dependent on so many different elements in combination to make a dish distinctive. Be it in the way something was sliced to how hot the pan had to be to when a certain ingredient was added to how the dish was finished. Everyone had their magic technique not unlike musicians and actors who own a certain turn of phrase to make the style their own.
These influences are the foundations I had to build from with my own machinations in the kitchen. I’m not a chef nor a great cook. I’m a good cook at best. But it is because of these influences that today I can do what I do… and not crave the taste of something past with the ability to create it in the present. It is these influences that I am counting today… and everytime I cook.
