Cookbook author finds the magic in vegetables
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E-mail China Daily, April 25, 2017
When she moved from Singapore to Seattle for college, Patricia Tanumihardja says, she was "shocked to learn that many of the fresh fruits and vegetables I had taken for granted back home were hard to come by."
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Patricia Tanumihardja brings Asian cuisines' traditions to California where she has run a farmer's market. [Photo provided to China Daily] |
Singapore is a tropical island that imports most of its food, so many of the same items were available year-round. In Seattle, many things were available only at certain times of the year. Quickly entranced by the "farm-to-table" movement, she eventually even ran a farmer's market in Pacific Grove, California.
However, the eating mindset of her native Asia stuck with her.
"One-pot meals like nasi goreng (Indonesian fried rice) and mee soto (noodles in turmeric-spiced broth) featured rice or noodles studded with tiny bits of meat and showered with fresh vegetables, herbs, spices and chiles. This is a perfect example of the peripheral role meat plays in the average Asian diet."
That works, she says, because Asian cuisines have a way with vegetables, often mingling contrary flavors to play with the four basic tastes of sweet, sour, salty and bitter.
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