About the Cat

From a very young age, I’ve always had an interest in food. I grew up in Indonesia, where we did not have the privilege of following recipes point-blank. With socio-political realities of what food trade looks like on a global scale, adapting recipes from its original position is one I’ve been extremely comfortable with.

The discourse surrounding ‘authenticity’ began with, as usual in this day and age, TikTok. Authenticity police are circulating every shared recipe online with an assertive voice that deems their opinion truthful. I wanted to challenge this with injected nuance and dynamism that the food industry practices, especially given seasonality and advanced techniques of unconventional seasonings and sauces that can really elevate the original dish. Especially given everything we’ve learnt in this subject, recipe books have always had some sort of ulterior motive for the rich. The realities of recipes should reflect how personal it is. How it can be evolved through sharing new versions that differ from its traditional ones.

I wanted my blog to reflect that, finding friends to share recipes of adapted dishes while tracing the ontology of it and challenging the purpose of food, recipes and the realities of how blurry this structure actually is.