Asian Delicacies : An Interview with Bizymoms Top Blogger 2010 Recipients Robyn Eckhardt

1. What makes your food blog stand out from other Asian food blogs out there?

We (photographer David Hagerman photographs for the blog and I write) focus on street food, traditional food culture and artisan makers around Southeast Asia. No other blog that I know of has as wide a geographical focus (we've blogged about foods from Indonesia to the Philippines and Sichuan, China to Malaysia) or focuses to the extent that we do on dishes that are often overlooked by tourists. We're more interested in telling stories (about people and places and cuisines) than in doing straight restaurant reviews, and our readers seem to respond to that.

2. What fascinates you about Asian culinary Delicacies?

The variation among cuisines within the region and, at the same time, the culinary threads that unite these disparate cuisines. For instance, some sort of fish sauce in the Philippines, Vietnam, Burma, and Malaysia - yet these cuisines are very different.

3. What is your favorite Asian food dish? How is it made?

A difficult question. I love palm sugar and coconut and for me simple is best, so I choose putu piring - rice flour cakes steamed, turned out onto a piece of banana leaf, and sprinkled with palm sugar and freshly grated coconut. It's a specialty of Malaysia; it's a street food, and it's delicious.

4. What similarities do you see among the food cultures of Asian countries?

The love of noodles - at any time of the day from morning through to midnight snacks. If it's not noodles its rice as the main starch. Fermented fish products - fish sauce, shrimp paste and dried shrimp - appear in most Asian cuisines. Chilies are generally loved (though less so in some cuisines). Chinese condiments like soy sauce and bean paste are used from northern Thailand to the Philippines. And almost every Asian cuisine has a variation on congee (rice porridge). I think if more people were acquainted with, say, Indonesian-style rice porridges they'd think differently about the dish.

5. How different are Malaysian dishes from other Asian delicacies?

Malaysia is different because its cuisine incorporates influences from China, India and the Malay archipelago, with a few Portuguese and British (from colonial times) influences thrown in. No other cuisine in Asia boasts so many culinary influences.

6. What books about Asian cooking can you recommend to our readers?

Fucshia Dunlop; The Land of Plenty (Sichuan, China) Andrea Nguyen; Into the Vietnamese Kitchen James Oseland; Cradle of Flavors (Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore) David Thompson; Thai Food.

And anyone who loves dumplings should pick up Andrea Nguyen's 'Asian Dumplings' which will have you making all sorts of Asian dumplings at home in no time. Andrea writes fantastic, fail-proof recipes.

7. What are some of the most unlikely locations in Asia where you discovered delicious food?

The northern Lao province of Luang Namtha, which is fairly poor, but its ethnic minorities make some very interesting, delicious dishes. One that I remember in particular is a jaoew (dip) made with the tender tips of rattan stalks (rattan - as in the stuff you make furniture with). The rattan, which is spiky, is singed over an open fire, peeled then boiled. It's pounded with various spices and the result is deliciously nutty.