Satiating the senses: Masterful Kuching laksa family saga

IT is exhilarating and exciting!

Janet Tay’s debut novel is a mouth-watering, uplifting and lovingly researched story about legacy, tradition and food, and it’s written around ‘Sarawak Laksa’ – imbued and embedded in Kuching’s history.

‘Early Mornings at the Laksa Cafe’ will be published by Harvill, Vintage (Penguin Random House Group of Companies) this Jan 22.

A review copy was made available by David Tay of Pansing Distribution to me.

Janet lived in Kuching in the 1980s and 1990s, and had left for the UK for her studies when she was 18.

Her father is Sarawakian and still resides in Kuching today.

Janet’s short stories and journalistic essays on literature, food and parenting have appeared in various collections and magazines. Today, she lives in Kuala Lumpur with her husband and son.

On what had inspired her to write about Kuching and making ‘laksa’ the ‘star attraction’ of her fictionalised tale, Janet says: “I relate to stories written about faraway lands; my idea of one is Carpenter Street, one of the oldest streets in Kuching steeped in culture, history and food.

“Teck Boon Kopitiam is entirely fictional, inspired by a ‘kopitiam’ (coffee shop) that sold my favourite laksa.

“When I heard that the kopitiam had closed its doors, I was saddened by the thought that people might forget it ever existed, marking the end of an era for the simple yet artisanal meals they served.”

Imagine if you will, a hybrid between the hit movie ‘Eat Drink Man Woman’, John Berendt’s ‘Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil’, and any one of Anthony Bourdain’s many books, in this case, ‘Kitchen Confidential’ – and you’d get a general concept of what Janet’s family drama is all about.

Starting in Swatow, China in 1938, it’s the story of Teochew patriarch Lim Ah Hock who moved to Kuching and as an adult, he was the ‘King of Laksa’ operating out of his family shop at Carpenter Street by 1994.

The setting and premise together with the historical details and situational aspects in the Lim family’s saga are all true to life, but the events are creative fiction dramatised by the writer.

For those of us who have resided in Kuching all our lives and have come in contact with similar families who had lived during the period cited in the book, much of the drama may ring as true as the daily occurrences and tales that we hear; heck, we might even be the real-life incarnations of some of Janet’s fictional characters!

The first half of the book swings between Kuching in the 1990s and Hong Kong, where the main character Lim Teck Boon, Ah Hock’s son, had ended up before his unexpected return to Kuching in the second half.

The author’s mastery at realising and detailing many scenes played out in the various kitchens when it comes to food and their preparation of all kinds, satisfies the reader’s creative appetites and satiates the senses!

It’s satisfying mind-fodder for the foodie reader, as well as for those looking for more intrigue and excitement in dark family secrets and drama.

There’s even a touch of romance and a tinge of comedy.

Although it’s a work of fiction, there are loads of factual information that has been cleverly woven into the storyline.

Take for instance this luscious descriptive paragraph about buying laksa ingredients from the shops in Kuching.

“Ah Hock bought the spices himself every week from an old spice shop at the Main Bazaar.

“He would come back with big plastic bags of shallots, garlic, dried chillies, candlenuts, and ground spices like cumin, cardamom, clove, nutmeg.

“There were 30 ingredients altogether, whereas most laksa stalls used pre-packaged commercial pastes that had far less – half of what theirs contained.

“Ah Hock would blend the ingredients together and pound them into a paste, a daily ritual for the past 40 years. An electric blender would have made his work a lot easier, but he refused to use one, convinced the taste would be different against plastic and metal, compared to his trusty old stone and mortar.”

Certainly you can forgive the discerning reader who would certainly wonder how true-to-life the events in the book were, or were they simply soft-focus disguised re-telling of true family affairs that had actually occurred during this period between 1938 and 1994.

Could this be the family saga of either one of the two famous Kuching laksa origin families: the Gohs, or the Tans?

Both were Teochew, weren’t they?

Family members are still very much alive today and are, in fact, still in the same trade – except that they’re no longer operating laksa stalls, but have focused on supplying the wholesale trade with their heritage laksa pastes from family homesteads.

As a matter of fact, I know one of the two families well, and had previously written about their heritage laksa beginnings for a feature article in a culinary magazine of some repute.

I am still in touch with some of their family members and know quite a bit about their background and family history.

One can only but speculate.

A lot of the culinary aspects mentioned in the book by Janet rings true and many words of wisdom can be gleaned from her well-researched material.

Certainly the pride that both the father and son characters in ‘Laksa Cafe’ book takes in ensuring the quality, essence and taste of their bowl of Kuching laksa cannot be overstated as would any chef worth his salt.

Janet takes utter delight in describing the classic laksa broth early in the book.

“The broth was rich with the essence of fish and meatiness of fowl, the smoky flavour of charcoal giving it the depth ordinary broths didn’t have.

“Ah Hock’s father had taught him how to ensure the broth never lost its depth, by adding chicken bones, dried flatfish, prawn heads, or a whole chicken if needed.”

Hopefully, this would be just the first of many such books to come from this delightful and amazing wordsmith of a writer.

Janet has this to say when introducing ‘Early Mornings at the Laksa Cafe’ to us.

“It is fitting that my debut novel should be a love letter to Malaysian cuisine, in particular the food I ate as a child, which I am excited to showcase to the world.

“It is also a story about a father and son who are at odds because they want different things in life: Ah Hock, a curmudgeonly laksa master who struggles to preserve his family legacy, while his son Wei Ming, not wanting to sell laksa and inherit the family business, yearns to be a famous chef in his own right.

“I have always been fascinated by the concept of ‘xiaoshun’ (filial piety), and I explore this concept in my novel to discover the conflicts between father and son.”

I recommend this book to you dear reader, and wish it every success, and I hope that with the interest in Kuching laksa and its world recognition in recent years from Bourdain’s TV series spots that we could hasten the ‘product recognition’ of this unique and heritage dish, which is Kuching’s unique contribution to the world at large.

Who knows – maybe they’d make a movie out of it next? It has all the right ingredients after all!

I’d leave you with two nice quotes that the writer had used in the book, which are both revealing, insightful and rather inspiring:

“If cooking was his religion, then eating was his meditation.”

“If you are patient on one moment of anger, you will escape a hundred days of sorrow (Chinese proverb).”

As for me, I’m going for my regular bowl of laksa now.

How about you?