He Who Controls the Spice

We obediently returned to Kimberley Street for a dish of loh mee again this morning after yesterday's hiatus. It was early this morning, as we had to get to Penang's Tropical Spice Garden for a cooking class with Pearly, a nyonya chef.

Black bamboo at the Tropical Spice Garden

On arriving, we were first taken on a guided tour by a lady who was adamant that the plants had healing properties and subscribed to the theory of their being either 'cooling' or 'heating' to the body. She animatedly tried to persuade us of the medical properties of the different herbs and spices, which have variously been claimed to improve sexual stamina (tongkat ali), control PMT (kacip fatimah), relieve flatulence, and cure cancer. While few of these claims can be verified, the one plant that does fulfil expectations is stevia (which strikes me as a "but I've already painted the nursery blue" kind of name for a baby girl). Even in the tiniest amounts, this miracle plant is super sweet and has zero calories. While it has been used as a natural sweetener in Asia for years, it is likely to be a great disruption to Europe and America's sugar-laden diet.

Worth their weight in gold

It was wonderful to see how the spices we are used to in the kitchen actually grow. In some cases, this yielded a few surprises.

Nutmeg, along with cloves and pepper, was one of the original spices so prized by the Europeans and drove the spice trade. We saw the nutmeg fruit on the tree, where the brown kernel with which we are familiar is the seed. It is surrounded by a pale yellow flesh and the seed is covered in a bright red lace, which is dried to become the spice mace.

Nutmeg fruit

In Penang, the nutmeg flesh is candied, salted, and used to produce syrups and juices. We have tasted nutmeg juice, which when fresh is the same pale yellow and tastes like lemon barley followed by a distinct nutmeg flavour. It is also served having been double-boiled with sugar, in which case it is a browny red and has lost the fresh lemon aroma.

Heliconia

Other interesting plants were the heliconias, whose flowers form strings of bright red and yellow 'lobster claws', and the bromeliads. Bromeliads are diverse and have adapted themselves to a number of different environments. Some grow on rocks or hanging suspended in the air - their roots able to derive moisture from natural humidity. The best known bromeliad is the pineapple, whose fruit is actually formed from multiple berries that coalesce after the flowers have fruited.

We didn't only see flora in the garden, but fauna too: flying lemurs, a mouse-deer (K saw this unusual creature, which looks like a miniature deer), and of course dusky leaf monkeys, which we have seen on numerous occasions. This time, one of the timid leaf-eaters was carrying a baby, which had bright golden hair that will later turn black. This doesn't seem like a very good way to hide from predators, so the mother was keeping a close eye on the child, making a photo difficult.

A glimpse of the golden child

Pearly runs a cooking class at her own home and occasionally at the Spice Garden. She has published a recipe book on the Peranakan, or nyonya, style of cooking.

Pearly at work

We had a small cooking lesson with her after our tour of the Gardens. The set-up in the kitchen was for a much bigger class than the three students there were today.

Preparation is critical

We cooked four dishes, each of which was fastidiously prepared in advance and then cooked in the wok in quick succession. In such a warm environment, it is not imperative that the food be served hot (unless it is soup), but it should be freshly cooked.

Lunchtime feast

First up was a simple salad, made interesting with a dressing of garlic, shallots, nutmeg syrup and ground cardamom seeds. The hot dishes were sweet-and-sour tofu, fried rice, and Chinese cabbage stir-fried with egg. We ate looking out to sea and chatting to Pearly and her sous-chef/husband, Chandra, about their travels in Europe and New Zealand.

As a cooling pit-stop when we arrived back in George Town, we sampled another ais kacang by way of dessert. This time from a shop, rather than a stand.

Ais kacang

While pleasantly refreshing, this was still mostly ice with some meagre toppings. The syrup on the ice had the same medicinal quality as the one we tried yesterday. Nothing so far has beaten the dessert at Loke Thye Kee.

Returning to the Hin Bus Depot (now arts centre) for the second evening of the Tropfest film screenings, we were treated to another handful of short films and a feature.

These films were from Asia courtesy of Viddsee (the films can be watched for free online) and alongside two films we had already seen at the coffee shorts last week (The Lying Theory, Lotto), were two new ones: Lola, a different take on the zombie genre, and In the Name of Love, seemingly a tribute to Bladerunner with a twist in its tail.

The main feature of the evening was Lost Loves - a film by Cambodian director and University lecturer, Chhay Bora - which deals with a very personal story of life under the Khmer Rouge.

Dealing with the history of the director's mother-in-law and her family, the film graphically depicts the suffering of the people of Cambodia over the five year rule of Angkar (The Party).

The grandfather and patriarch of the family was a high-ranking government official prior to 1970. When it became evident that Lon Nol's government was about to be defeated, precipitating a cultural revolution led by the Khmer Rouge, he refused to flee Cambodia out of pride in his country and the shame that would ensue. The consequence of this decision was that his family was evacuated from the capital with the rest of the "New People" to join the peasants and farm labourers, whose way of life was so venerated by Pol Pot and the other cadres.

As the family toiled the land, indignities were heaped on the mother and her children. The family was separated in order to break down filial bonds and increase allegiance to Angkar. The workers were kept compliant through starvation and brutality. Torture and death inevitably followed.

Films such as Lost Loves and Rithy Panh's The Missing Picture are important works that shine a light on a dark period of Cambodian history. For victims of the genocide, these are memories that they do not willingly share, not even among fellow survivors and least of all with the younger generation.

According to the director, in the Q&A that followed the screening, some of those born after 1979 treat such tales of this period with incredulity. Who can blame them, when the perpetrators of the atrocities lied to the UN at the time and, when eventually brought to trial, failed to accept responsibility for, or, in some cases, knowledge of the heinous crimes committed in their name. Coming to terms with the past is not as simple as forgetting it.