Hi everyone, meet my new book-baby - Plantasia: A Vegetarian Cookbook Through Asia.
The idea for the book was conceived in 2019, when I moved to Melbourne and saw how devastating the bushfires were, as a result of climate change. Colleagues came to work visibly shaken by how family members who lived rurally were impacted by the fires. Wex told me about how his entire office had to evacuate once. And I learnt to be vigilant when the Emergency app in my phone buzzed because I was told that by the time you see fire, it’s too late.
Growing up in Singapore, climate change always felt rather abstract. Sure, the weather felt unbearably hot on some days, but there was always air-conditioning somewhere. There’s nothing quite like actually seeing the impact of climate change up close when we moved to Australia to cause something to shift inside. I decided that the most concrete action that I could take was to cut down on my meat consumption.
It hadn’t been easy. As a ‘90s baby, I grew up around an abundance of meat. And as a cook, I had grown accustomed to using meat, seafood, and animal products as crutches for flavour. Once these were taken away, I was stumped.
Turning to vegetarian or vegetable-focused cookbooks seemed like the obvious answer, but I was dissatisfied. While they were fantastic resources and a great jumping-off point in my journey to embrace vegetables, few focused on foods and flavours that I had grown up eating.
There were, of course, Asian vegetarian cookbooks out there on the market then, but many of them seem to be written by vegans, for vegans. Many recipes involved ingredients that I am hesitant to use in my own kitchen or specialty vegan ingredients, such as faux meat mince or soy curls. They also tended to focus on creating vegan versions of traditional Asian dishes that have meat and seafood at their heart.
I saw a real gap in the market back then for the kind of cookbook I myself was looking for - a vegetarian cookbook written from the perspective of an Asian who wants to reconcile her love for Asia’s culinary traditions with a desire to cut down on meat. If an omnivore cooks the recipes in Plantasia and finds them as satisfying and dynamic as dishes with meat, I would have succeeded in my mission.
Plantasia is not just the distillation of my own journey in learning to love vegetables; I have also invited 24 other cooks, chefs and food writers onboard to share their stories on how Asia has influenced their approach to vegetables.
These include the James Beard-winning author Andrea Nguyen, who has just launched her own vegetable-focused cookbook Ever-Green Vietnamese; Zoey Xinyi Gong, who demonstrates the food-is-medicine connection through her food; the ever-inspiring Jenny Lau, who initially started Celestial Peach to investigate health and longevity through a vegan Chinese diet; and C-Y Chia and Shane Stanbridge of Lion Dance Cafe, the revolutionary vegan Singaporean restaurant in Oakland that I am so looking forward to visiting.
Regardless of your diet or stance on eating meat, I believe that learning to cook vegetables deliciously is something that is relevant to everyone.
As a thank you to all of you who have been following along, here are two newsletter-exclusive coupon codes that you can use at checkout: 10OFF120 and 20OFF200. Great time to be shopping in advance for Christmas gifts. Thank you all for supporting my work and being a part of the Singapore Noodles community. I’m so thrilled to be sharing this with you!
