Chef Wan: The Gallivanting Gourmet

The Jakarta Post   |  Sat, 06/28/2008 3:33 PM  |  Profile

Malaysia’s food ambassador for almost 20 years, Chef Wan has sliced, diced and minced his way around the world in TV cooking shows and culinary expos. He talks to Bruce Emond about the importance of tried-and-true recipes.

Chef Wan’s bustling modus operandi in the kitchen is a heaping dose of unbridled flair with a generous pinch of flamboyance. It’s a brand of ingratiating camp that is palatable to those old ladies taking a careful look at how a young upstart mixes his spices, as well as macho types sneaking a peak at the guilty pleasure of a cooking show.

In person, Wan is still charmingly garrulous but also a formidable straight talker. He is fastidious to a fault and likes his service just so. On a bright Saturday morning in May, during the Kelapa Gading Food and Fashion Festival in Jakarta, he takes a waiter to task for first, putting too much ice in his juice, and then not understanding that he wanted his mineral water “fizzy”.

Thankfully, despite the prickly state of Malaysian-Indonesian relations at the best of times, the waiter simply responds with a bemused smile as the chef has his say.

The resident chef for the Asian Food Channel and the host of a popular talk show in his homeland says his advice is well meaning.

“I’m very upfront,” says the 50-year-old. “I was a bloody good waiter when I was studying for my accounting degree in Sydney. The specials would be sold out by 1 p.m., and the chefs would thank me for it. For me, it’s all about passion and love and understanding the ingredients ....

“I always made good tips, because I did it with my heart and soul. I’m camp and a bit crazy, so for me waiting tables was a great job.”

Chef Wan calls himself a “man of many talents”; he has been an accountant, acted in movies, written books on cuisine and been a teacher, including now at a culinary school in London. He has cooked for celebrities (Barbara Streisand and Don Johnson, among others) and a president (Ronald Reagan), and will happily oblige with a sumptuous spread for Middle Eastern or Asian royalty at their request.

It’s a good living (his main residence is a Kuala Lumpur penthouse), and one that he says allows him to provide for his family and various charities. Although he talks with obvious pride about his accomplishments, it does not smack of boastful grandstanding so much as respectful testimony to his long journey to where he is today.

Born to a father who was in the Malaysian air force and an ethnic Chinese mother, Redzuawan Bin Ismail was one of seven children. His mother took in catering orders around the base to supplement the family’s income, and her oldest son was her trusted helper, waking up at 4 a.m. to slice chilies. He spontaneously and expertly folds a paper tablemat to show how he learned to put together rice packages.

But the 9-year-old boy’s interest in cooking was not to his father’s liking. “Being in the kitchen meant being a faggot, it was a woman’s world,” he says bluntly. “I can’t tell you how I suffered, how many times I was chased out of the kitchen.”

He already knew the power of marketing and the product. He would sell his mother’s curry puffs in the barracks, and then race back for a fresh, piping-hot batch to keep customers satisfied

After his accounting stint, which was the profession his father wanted him to pursue, the call of the kitchen proved too strong. He studied at the California Culinary Academy, learned some more at The Ritz in Paris for a year, was a private chef in Hawaii and then returned to Kuala Lumpur. His TV career began when a TV station called up the celebrity chef to share some tips with the home audience.

He spreads the word about the tastes of his homeland, but he is also a big fan of Indonesian cuisine. There are many similarities between the neighbors’ cuisines in the spices and other ingredients, but he believes the dishes of his homeland have absorbed more foreign influences over the centuries.

“While in Indonesia, it’s really very genuine Indonesian. You’ve got Maluku, the Chinese, the Balinese, everything. It’s so beautiful, the culture, the people, I love it. Even at the simple warung, you see the tofu, the rujak, the seafood – it’s simple but people love to eat.”

But the great gripe of foodies is that Indonesian food, such a standout in its homeland, is often mediocre when served up overseas. So why doesn’t it travel well?

“The biggest problem is the ingredients. It doesn’t quite work the same way somewhere else even with the same ingredients,” he says. “I believe it has to do with the weather, the soil, how it has been treated by the farmers. So the result is not the same. You can grow lemongrass and kencur (a type of rhizome) in California, or Hawaii, but it won’t be the same compared to something grown in Java by a farmer in the paddy field.”

Fusion has taken off in a big way, but it’s a dirty word for Wan. It’s not just about East-meets-West fusion confusion, but that self-conscious borrowing from here and there to try to keep everybody happy. His voice rises as he tells of seeing a Thai pomelo salad on the menu at a Malaysian restaurant in Sydney.

“What I say is that we as people, who come from different areas of Asia, should be proud of what we have …. Do the French ever apologize for their coq au vin or for using too much butter or cream?

“In Malaysia, there are so many chefs who try so hard to butcher our food. It’s enough that we have some gweilo who butchers it at some hotel so you can’t tell what crap it is. And then they charge a bomb for it. Excuse me.”

It’s all about respect and pride, he says.

“I tell the kids, ‘be respectful of our style’. If I’m making Sundanese or Aceh or Palembang, I learn everything about what is found in their kitchen .... For me, I want the students to elevate it to a higher standard by finding out for themselves that this lemongrass, grown for two months in this area, is the best for rendang.”

Wan says proudly that his son, who has his own cooking show, is “Malaysia’s Jamie Oliver”. (His daughter, also from his brief arranged marriage, is an actress.) However, he is not ready to move aside quite yet for the younger generation. This year, he plans to do a series on the food of the Indonesian archipelago for the Asian Food Channel.

He says he will venture into kitchens around the country to find the genuine article.

“Restaurants are the food ambassador for every country,” he says. “If you are not ready to serve authentic food, then why bother?”

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