Image Credit : Htgoon at en.wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Nonya food is so fine it’s considered the haute cuisine of a region already famous as a melting pot of exotic multiethnic flavors. Steeped in Chinese culture and folklore, Nonya enters into a heartfelt dialogue with local Malay and neighboring Thai, Indian and Indonesian styles of cooking.
The idea of traditions “marrying” is usually a metaphor, but it is literal in this case. Legend traces the Nonya lineage to the union of a beautiful Chinese princess, Han Li Po, with the Muslim sultan of Melaka in the 1400s. Five hundred maidens accompanied the princess, and all supposedly married local men, their descendants became the first Straits Chinese, otherwise known as the Chinese Peranakans.
The men were referred to as baba (in Indonesian, babah) and the women as nonya (Indonesian nyonya). Although many aspects of their shared culture are known as Baba, the cuisine was triumphantly named for the female side of the union.
Legend aside, it was traders from Southern China who settled along the Malaysian coast beginning in the 1500s, taking local women as wives. By the mid-19th century, the union had evolved into an elaborate subculture, whose upper echelon lived in beautifully furnished houses and conducted themselves according to detailed routines and social rituals.
Baba men introduced their wives to the foods of their native China. But the women, used to the intricate seasonings and lush tastes of their spice-blessed land, found Chinese cooking unbearably monochromatic.
The Chinese side of the Baba-Nonya partnership contributed to the techniques of steaming, “double-cooking” and double boiling and a love of costly delicacies like bird’s nest.
The Chinese penchant for exact shapes and precise textures turned into a fixation with Nonya cooks. And the Chinese obsession with health found its way into the Peranakan dining room in the form of soups and stews based on various medicinal roots and herbs. These were believed to cure anything from blemished skin to a stroke and rheumatic fever. Uniquely Chinese as well are the elaborate symbolism and superstition that surround the Nonya table.
As we said before, between Nyonas there were always some schemes and competitions going on. Cooking was important for the reputation of the house, which wasn’t all up to the furniture and decor. Can you imagine cooking for Chinese, Thai, English, and Malay guests in the same meal? And don’t forget that all the other wives are waiting for something to go wrong so they can report how incompetent you are! Trying to accommodate all tastes and preferences in one meal and only one kitchen was just part of the pressure.
