‘Malaysian cuisine defines fusion’: from Rendang to roti canai and curry laksa, how other Asian cultures influenced the country’s food
- What would Asian countries’ cuisines be like today if there had been no outside influences? Nowhere is the question more pertinent than in Malaysia
- Essayist Dawn Tan, in her 2004 book Food From the Heart, surveyed the huge variety of foods in the country, and invited chefs to contribute recipes
Malaysia, too, has its fusion food, as Singaporean journalist and author Dawn Tan describes in Food From the Heart: Malaysia’s Culinary Heritage (2004). In the introduction, she writes, “Malaysian cuisine defines fusion. And it’s been that way for over a hundred years. An early convergence of cultures from different worlds, the one thing they all had in common was that Malaysia became home.
“Everything suggests that it should have been part of some grand design – Malay, Chinese, Indian, Nyonya and Eurasian cuisine existing side by side. Yet the passage of the country’s heritage and its uniqueness as you travel from state to state happened as randomly as seeds scattered by winds that brought the new people to the land.
“In the south the large number of Javanese who settled there over the centuries influenced the Malay cuisine in the state of Johor. The cuisine of the central state of Negeri Sembilan, settled largely by the people of Minangkabau in West Sumatra, is distinct in favouring richly spiced food like Rendang, cooked in the thick milk squeezed from coconuts.
“Further north the cuisines of the states of Kedah, Kelantan, Perlis and the island of Penang, have been strongly influenced by that of neighbouring Thailand. The use of lime leaves in rice dishes like Nasi Kerabu, a popular Kelantan dish which bursts with a green confetti of wild pepper leaves, basil and daun kesum, is another Thai influence. In Penang the assam flavour of tamarind pulp and the heat of fresh bird’s eye chillies are prevalent as is the use of fresh herbs so typical in Indo-Chinese cuisine.”
