SIMONE PRISCILLA SURIN
BANKER, MARRIED WITH ONE SON AND A DAUGHTER
“Among the many things I now indulge in during this MCO is the preparation of family meals. A task I had very little time to enjoy before due to work commitments, errands and keeping up with my children’s extracurricular activities.
There’s one particular dish that stands out — my late grandmother’s debil (devil) curry dish. It’s a Eurasian household favourite, which she’d often cook for me when she knew I was coming to visit.
She was aware of my palate for spicy food. Every family has their own unique method of preparing this dish and while I’ve tasted many variations — all delicious in their own right — I still revert to Nan’s (as she’s affectionately called) style of preparing this dish.
Nan’s style of devil curry always invokes the many happy memories I have of my grandmother. My Nan took care of me when I was a baby and growing up, I spent a lot of time with her.
When I got married, one of the things I wanted to try cooking for my husband was my all-time favourite devil curry. I turned to my grandmother for the recipe and she told me to give her time to write out the recipe for me.
A week went by and during my usual visit, I reminded her again about it. She told me she was still working on it! I kept reminding her many times and finally gave up, thinking I’d burdened her to actually recall that recipe and put it down to paper.
One day, when I was about to leave her house after one of my usual visits, she finally presented me with a small notebook that had been filled with not just the recipe for devil curry, but for all my other favourite dishes that she knew I liked.
It’d been handwritten meticulously by my then 85-year old grandmother, from her own memory and not copied from any recipe book, complete with vague descriptions like “a bit of this and a dash of that” included in the recipes.
It took me totally by surprise. I was so touched to receive this from Nan. I’d only wanted that one recipe but she wrote a whole notebook of recipes, which explained why it took her that long to complete it.
To this day, that recipe book is a treasure in my kitchen and a go-to for my comfort food.
Each time I use the book, I read it in her voice (in my head) and channel her energy while cooking these dishes with much love, hoping to replicate those recipes while doing them justice, and keeping them a family tradition.”