Pearly Kee should have her own talk show. She would do a bit
of cooking, but she would also give advice, and just talk and talk, about
anything she can.
I spent the day with Pearly at her home to learn how to cook
traditional Nonya food, a blend of Chinese and Malay cuisine, borne by the
Peranakans, the first Chinese settlers to Penang. First we visit her local
market where she is a bit of a celebrity. Oh hai hai, oh hai, she waves across
bananas and butchers to her favourite vendors.
She knows everyone and everything, describing fruits, meat
and spices, what they are used for, why and a little story with each one. For
Pearly cooking is not just about the cooking and eating, it is about the stories,
rituals and significance found in food
and how it keeps her traditional
Peranakan culture alive.
We cook outside in the garden under a roof covering us from
the monsoon rain. Pork in dark sauce, Chicken Kapitan and Nasi Prawns – her
recipes, her culture and her stories.
For many years Pearly didn’t enjoy cooking so much. Cooking
was handed down to her as an expectation and responsibility. It’s obvious now
she comes alive in the kitchen, singing and giggling with knives and spoons
waving, cracking jokes.
We add spice, stir and wait for her next instruction. She
tells us how to hold the spatula to get the most goodness back into the meal.
The goodness must go in says, get the goodness in.
Pearly Kee is the goodness. The food we cooked was the
absolute goodness, but I think it is more due Pearly’s incredible goodness,
that everything was goodness.
