I love cookbooks.
I love them for the wealth of knowledge they hold, the insights into different cultures and the different ways they explore how to teach.
(and their ability to become ad-hoc laptop stands).
So, I’m prying some books from buckling Ikea bookshelf (before it takes its last gasping breath) and sharing some thoughts here.
About PLANTASIA
is a writer, cook and all-around force for good in the community. Her work, from her first cookbook Wet Market to Table and her newsletter displays a dogged determination to preserving Singapore’s food and cultural heritage.PLANTASIA is the next step in that journey, while elevating a chorus of Asian voices to conversations about vegetarianism, plant-based diets and sustainability.
You can hear her thoughts on PLANTASIA in last month’s post:
Architecture
Let me nerd out about the top three things I love about PLANTASIA:
The index: a colour-coded index that categories each recipe by whether it is allium-free, vegan, has vegan-options or vegetarian! All on one page - serves as a great snapshot of the entire book. Love this ease of reference.
The compass: here’s your guide to making vegetables taste great - flavour, accent technique and texture. Having frameworks boosts my confidence in when cooking - I feel like it’s a gift that’ll pay dividends, beyond the recipes in the cookbook. Developing instincts in the kitchen (to reach that pinnacle of cooking - where there’s no measurements - everything is “agar-agar”).
Interviews: feels like cheating as I’m rolling two things in one here - the stunning portraits from Shreya Parasrampuria coupled with the thoughtful questions Pamelia asks to each interviewee. It’s a privilege to see such skill on the page.
Only thing I’ll raise is that many recipes don’t have an estimated time. As someone who is rallying against being burdened by my clock/ schedule/ gcal, this departure from cookbook convention is quite a treat. An invitation to take things as they come.
Standout recipes
John Chantarasak’s Gaeng tay po (pg 219) is officially the first dish I’ve made with celeriac.
Here’s a photo of this gigantic celeriac I purchased for this very mission:
The resulting curry is warm, sweet and very homey. The salty-roastiness of the celeriac lends a “meaty” texture to the dish. Love the use of store-bought red curry (so it’s a friendly recipe for those short on time).
“Cracking” the cream took longer than I expected - but it was very helpful to see the photos as a visual indicator of the consistency what I was going for.
Overall: a success!
Also, the mushroom adobo spaghetti (pg 135) is now a staple in my weeknight rotation, thanks to the sauce that features pantry staples. I’ve used it as my “fridge cleanout” dish as well - the sauce works well with all kinds of mushrooms and my leftover tofu.
Final thoughts
Helen Goh describes it best:
“Pamela’s extensive knowledge of cuisine has enabled her to contextualise her stories and vegetable-starring recipes which demystifies and excites”.
PLANTASIA centres vegetables- not as a side-character, supplement or a substitution for “meat”. That’s evident in the stories shared by various interviewees and the range of recipes in PLANTASIA- from Thailand to Korea.
To me, PLANTASIA is a work of preservation. Pamelia’s mission of keeping Singapore’s food heritage alive, by preserving the stories and techniques and the people who inform, create and celebrate such a rich (and diverse) heritage.
Perhaps it’s the diaspora kid in me.
Perhaps I just really love good food.
Perhaps I just love stories.
Yes, I love eating. But I love falling in love with the stories around food. And as a diaspora kid whose lost the language of the generations above me, food necessarily becomes a form of dialogue. It mediates the distance between my grandparents’ generation, my parent’s generation and mine.
Put bluntly, I won’t be able to pass on Cantonese, Mandarin (let alone the 1278346016384 dialects my family insults each other with across the family reunion dinner) to the next generation.
I can share cookbooks like PLANTASIA.
And I can write about it.
And perhaps that’s an act of preservation in its own way.
A huge thank you to Pamelia Chia and Books at Manic for a copy of PLANTASIA.
Got an interesting book, essay or publication coming up? Reach out at @vegemitecongee - I’d love to have a read!