21: Preserving humble and everyday Peranakan cooking | Lloyd Matthew Tan, Author of Daily Nonya Dishes

Lloyd Matthew Tan: “After my dad passed away and with the loss of my mom, I came to the realization that everything might disappear… because everyone has got this idea that the food that the Babas or Peranakans eat is the festive kind of food that you find in the restaurants. But there is this unknown range of recipes which are basically home-based recipes. When you talk to anybody about Peranakan food, when you talking about vegetable-based dishes, the only thing everybody knows is chap chye.” Tan, author of Daily Nonya Dishes, shares about his passion for preserving home-based Peranakan dishes, plus: *Disappearing Peranakan dishes* *Vegetable dishes in the Peranakan repertoire that are not celebrated enough* *Adjusting Peranakan cuisine to suit the vegetarian or vegan diet* *Ingredients that are increasingly difficult to source in Singapore* *Why it is so important to support the wet market and its produce* *The demise of home cooking and the dilemma of cookbook writers* *Why traditional Peranakan recipes emphasize attention to detail* *How the Peranakans celebrate Chinese New Year differently from Singaporean Chinese* *Jewelry in Peranakan culture* *What it takes to keep a recipe alive*