New local cookbook documents 230 traditional Malaysian recipes

Kalsom and Hamidah tested and photographed all the dishes in the book in Kalsom's own home. Photos: ART CHEN/The Star

It is a cold, balmy evening... one of those gloomy, overcast days when the rain has cast a miserable pallor over the sky. But in 78-year-old Datin Kalsom Taib’s cool patio overlooking a fecund, foliage-laden garden, both the howling of the wind and the drip-drip patter of rain are ably drowned out by the animated conversation taking place between Kalsom and her 70-year-old cousin Datin Hamidah Abdul Hamid.

“I am not happy with this, the inside is okay but the outside is not cantik, ” says Hamidah, frowning at a disc-shaped kuih, the famed Borneo sweet treat, kuih penyaram (also known as cucur Jawa or cucur topi).