In the Introduction to Plant Asia: Asia’s Vegetable Wisdom in Recipes, Stories, and Techniques, Pamelia Chia describes her awakening to the costs of so much human consumption of food animals. Her awareness was based on popular books like Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation and Jonathan Safran Foer’s Eating Animals as a teen. Her conscience was pushing her to perhaps eat less meat, but she did not imagine that she could follow through.
“I doubted that I could give up meat for a meal, let alone a day. I knew what if I were to make a lasting change to my diet, the vegetable dishes that I cooked had to offer the same satisfaction as their meat-based counterparts.”
Her work in restaurants and professional kitchens, and her move from Singapore to Melbourne and then Daylesford changed her sense of what was possible. One meal was especially revelatory. She writes:
“A popular item at one restaurant I worked at, Carlton Wine Room, was deep-fried cauliflower on soy and sesame cream, drizzled with chili oil, then topped with puffed wild rice and crispy chickpeas. It was punchy, full of texture, and reminiscent of flavors I knew and loved—and it just so happened to be vegan. A light bulb flicked on in my mind.”
Could vegetable-based dishes be as satisfying as meat-based ones? Could the generations of vegetarianism and veganism in Asia be a mass-scale path forward, with so many creative food preparations available to satisfy different palates?
Chia offers her concept of a flavor compass to add pleasure to the eating of vegetables. There are four cardinal directions in this conceptualization: Use a flavor-packed ingredient; add an aromatic accent; use creative preparation or cooking processes, and add a contrasting texture.
For flavor additives, she points to “spices, dairy and eggs, alliums, umami-rich plants and their derivatives, preserved fermented products” as natural flavoring agents. In terms of aromatic accents, she points to “herbs, fragrant spices, flowers and essences, citrus” as potential aromatics. For preparations, she points to “aging, browning, blooming, charring,” as some preparations. And for contrasting textures, she suggests, “juicy, silky, creamy, chewy, crunchy” as a range of textual options.
Chia sets the stage by defining basic items in an Asian pantry. She lists some of the following as basic necessities: asafoetida, chinkiang black vinegar, coconut cream, curry leaves, dried black fungus, dried shiitake mushrooms, five-space powder, garam masala, ghee fat, Japanese salted plums, kecap manis soy sauce, kombu kelp, Korean fermented plum syrup, lemon grass, makrut lime leaves, pandan leaves, perilla oil, preserved radish, shiso leaves, tamarind concentrate, tempehs, and yellow bean paste.
The recipes that follow are eminently cook-able, even for the home chef. The book’s organization is based on various types of preparations. First, Chia shares some of her recipes. Then, she has featured chefs from various Asian food traditions share their ideas about food plants and food cultures around plants. Then, their recipes follow. The various dishes are beautifully photographed and explained. The chapter headings of preparations include the following: Raw, Steamed & Blanched, Simmered, Fried, Deep-Fried, Charred & Grilled, Roasted & Baked, and Sweetened. The respective chefs are quite recognizable, in both the East and the West. They represent cooking traditions from a number of regions around the world: Tibet, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, China, Bali, Vietnam, Korean, Indian, and others.
Various cultures use different approaches to enliven the flavor of vegetables. Indians use spice very creatively. Japanese use shichimi togarashi as a flavoring agent. Koreans use fermentation.
Burmese use deep frying of “lentils, onion, and garlic to add crunch.”
A communal sensibility informs Plant Asia, with its wide range of recipes and acclaimed chefs. They include Cameron Stauch, Sunny Lee, Ivy Chen, Vasunthara, Maori Murota, Sonoko Sakai, Gayan Pieris, Minal Patal, Jihee Shin, Cathy Erway, Cathie Carpio, Julie Kleeman and Yeshi Jampa, Andrea Quynhgiao Nguyen, R.G. Enriquez-Diez, Hairil Sukaime, Wayan Kresna Yasa, Bryan Koh, Jenny Lau, John Chantarasak, O Tama Carey, Petty Pandean-Elliott,C-Y Chia and Shane Stanbridge, Kimberly Mendoza Camara, and Zoey Xinyi Gong.
The book itself is beautifully illustrated, from the inside cover sheet to the end papers. The photos are luscious and appetizing. Plant-based dishes are so much more colorful than most meat protein dishes. There is indeed space for a cookbook like this in a meat lover’s culture, and so much more space for restaurants to offer such inspired foods. Produce can absolutely be the star of dishes, from appetizers to main dishes to desserts.
There is Tofu and Chive Dumplings with Peanut Sauce. What about a cauliflower laab? Typhoon Shelter Mushrooms? Potato Salad with Nori and Charred Green Onion? Pasties with Vegetables and Rice Noodles? A Bomboloni with Charred Banana Cream? Matcha Ice Cream with Red Bean and Dango? A Pandan Nián Gáo? Winter Melon Jelly with Passion Fruit and Peach?
Plant Asia offers a world of eating possibilities.
Pamelia Chia is a Singaporean culinary teacher and food writer based in the Netherlands. She has deep experience in food science and has worked in professional kitchens. She is the author of Wet Market to Table: A Modern Approach to Fruit and Vegetables. She writes the weekly Asian food newsletter titled Singapore Noodles. Illustrations of the respective chefs were created by Shreya Parasrampuria from photos.
Shalin Hai-Jew has worked in higher education for many years. She has edited dozens of nonfiction educational books and authored a dozen with a number of publishers.
