NYONYA RECIPES

- MAKANAN EMBOK EMBOK -

THE HISTORY OF NYONYA OR PERANAKAN FOOD AND A SELECTION OF AUTHENTIC NYONYA RECIPES FOR YOU TO RECREATE IN YOUR KITCHEN.

The spirit of NYONYA cuisine is not just about food and cooking style, it is also about a way of life that flourished during the Straits settlements of the 18th and 19th centuries, and the remnants of which, is still found in Singapore and parts of Malaysia.

Nyonya recipes evolved from the families known as Baba Chinese, Straits Chinese or Peranakan, which in the Malay language means 'born here'. These are the descendents of early Chinese settlers in Malacca who, faced with restrictions on the emigration of Chinese women, had married Malays. The men are referred to as 'Babas' and the ladies as 'Nyonyas'. This is why Nyonya cuisine is sometimes called the 'food of love' or 'makanan embok - embok' in Malay. The combined heritage of two such vital culinary traditions as Malay and Chinese makes for an especially rich and unique cuisine.

Baba families stood apart from the Chinese immigrants who came to Malaya later as laborers - they were wealthy and established, they held British citizenship, and they possessed a distinct Malay-influenced domestic culture and cuisine. Being generally good at business, they see their wealth increasing, mainly through the participation in the rubber industry and lived in splendid homes.  Many of these ancestral homes are now living museums, silent reminders of a once glorious past. Many Peranakans do not speak any Chinese dialect but speak what is referred to as "Baba Malay". It is a quaint mixture of mainly Malay words with liberal doses of Chinese words.  However, no amount of wealth will save the daughters of each household from being trained in the kitchen as part of their education as future Peranakan wives. The real secret of Peranakan cooking is in the detailed and painstaking preparation of spices to be used in any particular dish. The womenfolk of the community take great pride in their culinary skills. The recipes in the early days were closely guarded secrets and only passed from mother to daughter. In this way, the distinctive cuisine was preserved and developed.

Confined as it was to the domestic sphere of a small and elite social group, Nyonya food was not widely known and appreciated until after the independence of the Malay peninsula and the social changes that have occurred between Malaysia and Singapore that have made it so. Nyonya restaurants now exist where they were none before. Ironically, the same dynamic also poses quite a serious threat to the cuisine's future. Modernization and affluence are favoring the adoption of Western food habits among the new generations in the Nyonya community. Social traditions have changed too. No longer do the Peranakan form a distinct community which trains its daughters as custodians of a unique domestic culture. Nyonya cuisine now depends on deliberate, commercial, personal and professional promotion to preserve it, and time alone will tell if this will prove sufficient.

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Distinct differences evolved between the cuisine of the Penang Nonyas and that of Malacca. Penang, being geographically closer to Thailand has produced a range of Nonya food that exhibits a passion for sourness, combined with fiery hot chilies, fragrant herbs and pungent black shrimp paste. The sour flavor is the result of the fondness of Nonya cooks in using lots of lime and tamarind juice. The Malaccan Nonyas, on the other hand, tend to prepare food that is generally rich in coconut milk and Malay spices such as coriander and cumin. Sugar is quite liberally featured in the recipes of their southern cousins. One very unique style of the Nonya cuisine is their imaginative ways of preparing fruits and vegetables. Sweet potato leaves, tiny sour carambola, unripe jackfruit and the heart of the banana bud are all transformed in the kitchen, added to and blended with aromatic leaves such as kaffir, turmeric, pandan, and polygonum or laksa leaf. One of the most popular Nonya dishes among Malaysians and their southern neighbor of any background is the Laksa, a rice-noodle soup that marries Malay seasonings with Chinese noodles.

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Food aside, an interesting feature of the Peranakan fashion was the golden hairpins and beautiful beaded shoes worn by the Nyonyas to compliment their equally unique  Malay influenced dressing known locally as 'Pua Teng Teh', where the dress (sarong) ends three quarters of the way down from the knee and are held together by a set of jewelry called 'Kerongsang'. Before the advent of radio and television, the 'Dondang Sayang' was a popular form of entertainment of many Babas and Nyonyas, especially during wedding festivities. Though it has waned in popularity, there remain to this day, many traditional Peranakans who work very hard to keep the traditions of Dondang Sayang alive. Although Peranakan community is classified as Chinese in official matters, the government has acknowledged its uniqueness and given it the recognition it richly deserves.