Desserts come in vivid shades of green, brown, yellow and blue – all dyed naturally using ingredients such as pandan leaves, gula melaka (palm sugar), turmeric and blue pea. For example, when making apom berkuah (rice flour pancakes), a few drops of blue pea tea are added to the batter and swirled to give each pancake a pretty blue spiral.
Unique to Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia, Peranakan food originated around the 15th Century. It is often considered one of Southeast Asia’s first fusion cuisines, mixing Malay, Chinese, European and Indian influences.
Men from South India, China and Europe – many of them single – had sailed to Southeast Asia in search of riches from sea trade. Some of them settled in the port cities of Malacca, Penang and Singapore along the Malay Archipelago, and started families with the local Southeast Asian women. Descendants of these blended families were called Peranakan, which means “local born”.
Under a patriarchal system, the women were in charge of the home. They cooked in a style they had learned from their Malay and Indonesian mothers: lots of stews and curries cooked in a plethora of local herbs and aromatics – lemongrass, blue ginger, pandan leaves, to name a few – which helped to preserve the food in a tropical climate without refrigeration, said Lee Geok Boi, author of In A Straits-Born Kitchen and other cookbooks.
