Bettina Chua Abdullah and Manju Saigal's First Food Memoir Celebrates the Care in Cuisine

“Manju is elegant, gracious and especially approachable. She is unfailingly generous when it comes to food and feeding, and the sharing of her knowledge,” enthuses Chua. “The visit to Mussoorie was so important for me to experience the place where Manju had grown up, to have a sense of how this town arranges and navigates itself, and to understand my friend’s place in it.

"There was also the food, but more so, a way of eating. Everything seemed just pulled from the soil, just plucked, just shucked—the deep, strong flavours of a fresh harvest. Hand-churned butter, white as a gardenia. Soft and supple paneer that didn’t need to be cut free from a plastic straitjacket, all to be transformed in the kitchen with the magic of spices.

"I watched and I understood what Manju meant by cooking in layers and I was fascinated by how her hands moved. Gentle, patient, loving hands. The cook’s calm, respectful hands. I can’t explain why, but you can taste that. Really, you can.”

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A treasure trove of recipes accompanied by stunning photography, delightful illustrations, and poignant memories of cherished people and places, To Nourish With Love is a food memoir that captures the love, kindness, and care in cuisine. It's one that Saigal hopes will be a legacy for her children and a joy for readers even outside of her circle of family and friends. “Cliched as it sounds, time is passing too quickly, and change is happening all around us,” she says.

“Yet to fully understand the present, you have to know the past. Food and cooking are so reflective of our culture and traditions, a mirror to the way things have evolved. Memories go beyond the taste of the food we eat to include the people and places associated with them.”

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What are your fondest food memories?

Bettina Chua Abdullah (BC): Until my paternal grandmother passed, our extended family always celebrated the Lunar New Year in Muar, where my family goes back six generations; where my great-great grandfather was the Kapitan Cina. I didn’t know it then, but my grandmother really was the first person I knew who truly made food with love. Love is the only reason to stand and stir eggs and sugar and coconut cream for three hours over a scant flame to make the best kaya in the world. Hers was of perfect custard sweetness with a very slight sheen. We didn’t spread it as much as we loaded it onto flame-charred toast.

Manju Saigal (MS): Some of my fondest memories take me back to when I was a little girl in Mussoorie. I loved being around my mother as she prepared the dough for the phulka, basically a roti that puffs when placed on the fire. I had my own toy rolling pin and board called chakla belan, little models of what Mum used. I rolled the tiniest rotis that Mummy would then cook alongside the larger ones. Baoji, my grandfather, and Daddy would pretend to fight over who would eat the one I had made.

What are the biggest misconceptions you've heard about Indian cuisine?

MS: Many say Indian food is not healthy, that it's heavy and oily. This may be true in some restaurants, but traditionally Indian food preparations were based on Ayurvedic principles where fresh, seasonal, local foods were favoured. There was a right time to eat certain foods because of how they affected your digestion and health. A garnish or seasoning was added not for taste or presentation but more to balance your individual constituencies, including a spoonful of ghee to ignite the digestive fires to aid absorption.

Another misconception is that Indian food is synonymous with curry. To the uninitiated any dish with gravy or spices is a curry. A connection can be made to the aromatic curry leaf, used in much of South India to flavour their curries which are not really all wet curries. To further complicate the issue is kardhi which sounds like but is not a curry, even though it is quite saucy. The word kardhi literally translates to boiled or simmered. A Punjabi kardhi is a combination of gram flour and yogurt.

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Do you think readers are looking for more Southeast Asian stories in contemporary food literature?

BC: I certainly believe that readers, especially foodies, would be happy to read food literature of any origin, and Southeast Asia’s is an outstandingly diverse food scene that’s becoming a greater part of the global culinary cultural exchange. What I’d like to hear more of are Asian voices. When I set up The Fay Khoo Award for Food+Drink Writing in 2017, it was to provide a platform for writers of Southeast Asian heritage, and those who’d immersed themselves in this region. Why shouldn’t we also be the ones to put pandan on the global stage? It doesn’t have to come from Jamie or Nigella to have culinary cred.

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Why is it so important to keep a record of these food memories and recipes for future generations? 

MS: Change is happening all around us and Mussoorie is a perfect example of this. It was a life so far removed from ours in Malaysia and Singapore. I don't see it anymore as an idyllic little town in the mountains where neighbours and friends were family. Today, you may not even know their names. Memories fade and hence the importance of recording them for future generations. History is not just written by historians but also through personal reflections.  

Both my grandchildren, now seven and eight, have been asking me questions about my childhood. They know that when I was four, the teacher taped my mouth for talking during quiet time. They know the names of all our dogs and how I walked to school in the rain. I relate stories of my grandfather and what he meant to me. But there is only so much that little kids can process. There is so much more to share and this was the biggest inspiration for To Nourish With Love, that it would be a legacy for my grandchildren which I hope can be shared far beyond our circle of family and friends.

'To Nourish with Love: Flavours and Memories from Mussoorie to Malaysia' will be in bookstores from November 2022 onwards.

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