Written by: James
Our new product development is picking up pace, so I was on a trip to South-East Asia to do some research!
I had a few days in Singapore, then on to Malacca (or Melaka as it’s spelt in Malay). The beautiful historic centre is now a rather sleepy place full of old Dutch-gabled buildings, but in the 1500’s this was one of the wealthiest and most important places in the world.
The waters offshore are the famous Straits of Malacca, which offer shelter from storms in the Indian Ocean and favourable trade winds for the journey from Asia (most importantly at the time, from the Spice Islands of Indonesia), to the Middle East and then on to Europe.
There was a bustling trade hub here for centuries with Arabs and Chinese trading with the local Malays, and the first Europeans to arrive were the Portuguese in 1511. Their motivation was to try and dominate the spice trade which at the time was controlled mostly by Arab traders who then sold to the Venetians (who were making enormous profits - one of the big reasons why Venice is now so packed with so many fabulous palazzos!). The Portuguese plan was to source the spices directly from the producers in Asia, cut out the middlemen in Arabia and Venice, and keep the profits for themselves.
Over the subsequent decades the Portuguese could only commit relatively small numbers of people and resources to defending their settlements here, so they were soon forced out by the Dutch East India Company who were equally intent on controlling the spice trade, and it’s the buildings from this era that can still be seen in the centre of the town.
In 1824 the city was taken over by the British East India Company, and the Dutch focussed more on Batavia (Jakarta) which became the capital of the Dutch East Indies. The Brits then started to concentrate on their new settlements in Georgetown, Penang and Singapore which were all growing fast, so Malacca eventually became a bit of a backwater.
It’s still a fascinating place to visit for the history, but for us it’s the local food and particularly the Peranakan food that mixed all these Chinese, Malay, Indian and European influences that’s the main draw. Peranakan is the name for people originally from Southern China who moved to the area from the 1500s, and their legacy is now a unique cultural mix.
Many of the famous dishes of the region come from Peranakan culture with Chinese ingredients like noodles and soy sauce being mixed with South-East Asian ingredients like tamarind, lemongrass and coconut, dried Indian spices, and other ingredients such as chillies, tomatoes and potatoes which were introduced by the Spanish and Portuguese via South America . It makes for a heady, fragrant, often very spicy(!), but always incredibly delicious combination.
Here are a few of my highlights of the local food:
