Growing up in Singapore, cooking was something that did not intrigue Chia from the very beginning. “I always liked working with my hands, but as a child, my mum would chase me out of the kitchen for messing up her working space,” she laughs. “Furthermore, when I looked at the heritage cookbooks I had in the house, instructions were bare, and I would be put off by ingredients such as MSG or chicken powder.” 

However, as she pursued a degree in food science and technology during her university years, she grew a passion for the culinary arts and eventually decided to become a chef. “During this time, I published my first cookbook, Wet Market to Table, which was my entry into the cookbook publishing scene,” she recalls.

Chia’s husband, who she met at university, decided to pursue his masters in Australia, resulting in the couple moving to Melbourne, where Chia continued her career as a chef. “My husband works in agriculture, and since Singapore is a country that imports 90 per cent of food, there was not much room for growth at the time,” she says.

Upon moving abroad, the chef’s eyes were opened to the effects of climate change and global warming. “In Singapore, we are lucky to be protected from natural disasters,” she says. “When I moved to Australia, I saw how devastating the effects of bushfires were; my colleagues would tell me how their relatives had to evacuate their houses in the countryside.”

This spurred a change in Chia’s diet, on top of the fact that adhering to a plant-based diet was much more accessible abroad. “The quality of vegetables is amazing, and plant-based customers are respected and treated the same as their omnivore counterparts,” she says. 

Having said that, Chia always felt torn between her Singaporean heritage and her desire to reduce meat intake. “Asian food is typically associated with being meat and seafood heavy, for instance, Korean cuisine with fried chicken and beef broth, or Singaporean cuisine with duck rice or roast pork,” she quips. 

Chia turned to Western cookbooks that championed vegetables but felt the dishes did not gel with her palate: “I would crave ingredients like soy sauce and bean paste, rather than hummus and yoghurt.” As such, she decided to take matters into her own hands.

Plantasia: A Vegetarian Cookbook Through Asia highlights the diversity of vegetarian and vegan dishes that Asia offers. “My perspective was singular, growing up in Singapore, so I felt the need to rope in contributors for recipes and points of view from other food cultures," she says. 24 sets of contributors, which include the couple who run Taste Tibet in Oxford and the founders of Lion Dance Café in Oakland, have each written a recipe and shared their perspectives in interviews scattered throughout the book.

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Working with such contributors made Chia realise that she had preconceived notions about vegetables, for instance, in the case of a recipe for ginataang monggo, a green bean stew shared by a Filipino contributor. “In Singapore, green beans are consumed as a dessert, so to see it in a savoury context was eye opening,” she says. “It was such an amazing journey, learning not just about recipes but also philosophies, which translated into a large portion of the book.”

For instance, allium is unable to be consumed as well as meat, in the case of vegetarianism, as a result of religion, resulting in Chia including an allium-free label in the book's index. “In the West, going plant-based may be a lifestyle choice, but in Asian countries, it is tied to notions such as religious purity and medicine,” she says.

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Unlike her first cookbook, Plantasia: A Vegetarian Cookbook Through Asia is independently published, which allowed the author to play a part in the whole process, from writing and photography to direction and illustration. “The team involved an editor, copyeditor, proofreader, designer, and watercolour illustrator. We all come from different parts of Asia, so we were able to share our lens and perspective,” she smiles. The book will be available on shelves in October 2023, and can be pre-ordered at pameliachia.com. 

Chia hopes that with Plantasia, Asian voices will be heard in the context of veganism and vegetarianism. “I hope to challenge readers to change their mindset about eating vegetables from one of deprivation to pleasure and nourishment,” she ends. 

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