(Thanks to my old neighbor and her family who let us use her kitchen to illustrate how the Nonyas set theirs up. Ours had been demolished a few years earlier.)

All bets are off when my dinner guests waltz in. I cannot concentrate. Being polite, they will meander to the kitchen to blow kisses at me across the counter. Then we will start catching up. Eventually, they will hustle off to the sitting area with champagne or gin and tonic while I literally ‘fry in the kitchen’. My mother’s kitchen was different. It was a constant buzz all day long like a coffee shop.

‘Many old houses had two kitchens. My mother’s passion as a cook meant that she divided hers into three’, the third being for the storage of her multiple appliances, baking trays and food containers. ‘The outdoor wet kitchen was the hub for cooking with its own sink and stovetop. All the prepping, chopping, pounding, frying and cleaning took place there.’ As a family, we concentrated on the indoor dry kitchen which had cabinets for dinnerware, cutlery, food containers, biscuits and beverages. If you could picture the summoning of mafia underlings to the don’s table, my mother’s kitchen table was where the action took place. She cleared the grocery bills with the delivery man, placed orders with him for the next day, instructed the helper on what to cook for the day; and would receive friends and relatives who dropped in especially at teatime.

The Nonyas greeted each other with “Ada baik?” (Everything good?) as opposed to “Chiak pah buay?”(the mainstream Chinese saying of ‘Have you eaten?’ in Hokkien/ Fukienese.)

There was the ‘cacophony of chatting, gossipy whispers, laughter, scolding, temper flares, hollering amidst a range of intonations and volumes’. The connection between Nonya culture and food was intimate and no more apparent than the caustic nicknames given to friends and relatives behind their backs. ‘Nonyas were known for being sarcastic gossips and my mother and her peers had nicknames for almost everyone. Many were derived from food nomenclature. For example:

Si pantat kuali – She who has the derrière the size of a wok
Udang dalam tanggok – Flirtatious like a jumping shrimp caught in a basket
Si katek ayam – The short one, like the pygmy chicken
Si otak lembu – The dumb one with the cow’s brain
Anak kepiting – Baby crab, implying a restless and naughty child’

‘My mother’s kitchen was the center of her universe. Much of her life revolved around planning meals, prepping, cooking, baking, nagging at the helper, all within the confines of her kitchen.’
I think we all relate to that. I for one, relocated my kitchen to the center of my apartment. It is heart and hearth to me, as it was to my mother.