Pounding spices in 90 degree heat and 80 per cent humidity sounds like death by seasoning. But in the jungle-like Tropical Spice Gardens of Penang, with the effervescent Nazlina Hussin for my teacher, it is a curiously satisfying, if sweaty activity. We are making a rempah, or spice paste, key to many Malay dishes, using a traditional granite rolling pin (worryingly called “baby”) to smash onions, ginger, garlic and chillies on to a flat “mother” stone. While blue-streaked butterflies flit around the bamboo bushes, Nazlina explains how Malaysia’s distinctive Nyonya, or Straits, cooking grew up out of the marriages of local girls to Chinese sailors travelling through the Straits of Malacca that run between Indonesia and Malaysia. |
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