Your Asian Veggie Patch, by Melbourne-based urban permaculture gardener Connie Cao, is a user-friendly guide on growing and cooking a vibrant array of Asian vegetables, herbs and fruits.
The beautifully curated book is designed to “motivate as many people as possible to embrace and celebrate the diversity of edible plants grown and eaten across Asian households”.
As Cao declares at the start of the book: “Let me be your Asian best friend who can’t stop raving… Expect bountiful encouragement and enthusiastic cheering from me on the sidelines.”
Indeed, the author’s cheerful and sincere words distinguish this title from other gardening books out here in the market, as her writing comes straight from her heart.
She writes about growing up in an Asian immigrant family in Australia who are thrilled to discover they can grow the taste of home in their own backyard.
“Both (my dad and me) learned from scratch; I searched the Internet for advice, and he used trial and error as well as pragmatic logic. In the kitchen, my mum would turn our harvests into easy-to-make Asian dishes.”
“I was in awe then, and I’m in awe now. Nature reminds us that even the smallest things can be incredibly resilient and grow into something wonderful,” Cao wrote.
And that is what encourages gardeners across Australia and beyond to keep growing – not just to produce and enjoy their own food, but to cultivate heartfelt appreciation and respect for their working and living environment that is nurtured by Mother Nature.
The book is divided into two parts, with Part one introducing gardening essentials from climate to container growing and then to cooking.
The section “A permaculture way of growing” is particularly useful, promoting a “sustainable, resilient and regenerative” way of living.
Part Two is the true gem of the book, introducing cool-season veggies, warm-season veggies, year-round veggies, herbs and fruits that are commonly grown, harvested and prepared in Asian countries.
These are accompanied with easy-to-follow recipes and cooking instructions.
Some of these are highly manageable, such as homegrown kimchi, homemade chilli oil, and gardener’s sambal.
Others are eye-opening even to seasoned Asian cooks, such as yuzu vinaigrette dressing, lemongrass and pandan coconut rice, and cumquat and lavender iced tea.
As a fellow Asian Australian, this reviewer especially welcomes different versions of “ordinary” dishes such as pork and (garlic) chive dumplings, spring onion pancake, mapo tofu, and winter melon tea.
It is also great to learned about some unusual and uncommon plants, such as shark fin melon, jujube, shiso, choko, and curry leaf tree.
As Cao writes: “The best part of a home is always the veggie patch.”
There is nothing better than growing your own fresh, nutritious and delicious produce, because you know where your food comes from and what is involved in bringing them to your dining table.
