bonnie tsui


June 9, 1998
An Old Olive Branch
East has been meeting West for longer than we thought.

When you think of the olive, you may envisage the Mediterranean, luscious pastas and sauces from Italy, or perhaps a drizzle of oil over salad with red-wine vinegar and capers. But when chef and historian Tony Tan thinks of olives, his vision is of Asian cooking.

"What people may not realize is that the cooks descended from the Portuguese colonists in Macao [in southern China] have been using olive oil for centuries," Tan says. "Some unusual and beautiful dishes came out of the mixed marriages between Portuguese settlers and the Malays and Indians. So there has been a historical basis for the link between olive oil and Asian cooking."

Tan, who graduated with honors in Renaissance history and Chinese language from Melbourne's Monash University, is fascinated with the research he has been doing over the past few months. Those early dishes in Macao, he says, represent the "first East-West cuisine." Tan has also found evidence of a Catholic Japanese who was seeking religious asylum, and who taught others to make tempura with olive oil in the 1600s.

Tan sees the early policy of integrating Portuguese men with the native women as instrumental in creating hybrid cultures where "a lot of the influences fell into place" regarding cuisine.

He embarked on his research odyssey in order to ground what he has always believed about the mix of cultural influences in cooking. "I believe very strongly in what I say, and so I have to substantiate it with equally strong evidence. If you're able to combine various ingredients—say, coconut oil, turmeric, and ginger—in the right way, what you get is balanced, intelligent, and unintrusive."

To Tan, the marriage between Asian cooking and olive oil is a happy one that has been strong since colonial times. "In Chinese cooking, we tend to use corn oil or peanut oil. The truth is, neither one of these is Chinese. They both came from the Americas centuries ago. The same with the jicama that is used by the Chinese—the sweet potato was introduced by the Portuguese."

Tan says our assumptions on the opposition between Eastern and Western cooking have to be reconsidered.

Tony Tan is planning to lead a food tour to China in September with Chinese food writer Elizabeth Chong. For further details, telephone Unlimited Cuisine Company on (03) 9827 7347


in this publication

April 8, 2000
Mikro Waves