Out of the dark clouds of the Covid-19 pandemic, many rays of hope have shone through, making what had once seemed impossible, possible.
This is certainly true for many, and one in particular, for a group of chefs of Malaysian cuisines from all corners of the world.
Two years ago, Covid-19 had put paid to so many of their plans and their normal face-to-face demonstrations to their local groups became an impossibility. With travel plans cancelled and movements restricted, these chefs took to doing live cooking videos, which led to the grouping of like-minded chefs making their way forward in what was the new norm in the culinary world.
It gave birth to the Masters of Malaysian Cuisine (MOMC) — the brainchild of Jackie Tang, a Sydney-based Malaysian-born food entrepreneur, television presenter and founder of Malaysian Street Food Academy together with her business partner, Paul Gray, a digital marketer from Johannesburg, South Africa.
With the strength of their shared passion and speciality, the chefs not only showed how Malaysian food is cooked with whatever is available from their supermarkets but also together, from their own kitchens, they cooked for charity.
Now, with the opening of the borders and the relaxing of restrictions, this group of elite Malaysian-born chefs, who had made their home abroad with cooking Malaysian food their passion, have descended on Malaysian soil during these last few days.
What they were about to experience (starting tomorrow) during their five-week road trip together through several states in the country was nothing less than enviable in nature, to say the least.
Having had to cook with one eye to the camera, only seeing their audience on-screen during the past two years, these chefs could finally hang their selfie sticks and tripods to meet and network with local chefs, restaurateurs and hawkers to showcase Malaysia as the melting pot of Asia to the world.
They will even be given a treat in the guise of a durian familiarisation tour hosted by the Malaysian Agricultural Food Industry (Mafi), which will lead to the publication of a durian cookbook for Mafi. They will also be involved in the filming of Australia's Street Food Journeys for Tourism Malaysia.
"I had long been frustrated by how Malaysian food was under-represented and misrepresented internationally, with western celebrity chefs being some of the biggest culprits," said Jackie, obviously referring to the crispy rendang saga that mercifully had the counter effect of catapulting UK MasterChef contestant Zaleha Olpin onto the centre stage of the culinary world.
"Individually, our chefs were doing their part to share Malaysian food with the world, but to break through the noise, we needed to leverage our combined knowledge, reach and expertise," said Jackie.
So, Jackie went on to get together some of the world's well-known Malaysian chefs, such as United Kingdom-based Zaleha or better known as That Rendang Lady, Michelin-trained 5-star hotel executive chef Rene Juefri who is based in Dubai, Malaysian Professional Culinaire Association president Bob Adnin, MasterChef Malaysia judge Johari Edrus, Nyonya expert Debbie Teoh, Vegan sensation Dave Murugaya, Tourism Malaysia Culinary Ambassador, as well as restaurateur and TV host Datuk Ismail Ahmad.
Together, this core group of eight chefs share a combined online following of over 750,000! This figure is most important at a time when clicks, likes and shares are the essence of life online.
MOMC has been actively sharing Malaysian cooking with a global online audience, a monthly recipe eMagazine and three seasons of the Tourism Malaysia's Australia online series, Street Food Journeys: Malaysia.
The MOMC core group is joined by cooks from the extended MOMC@Heart group, as well as international influencers such as Australian media personality Lyndey Milan, The JetLag Warriors, Mark O'Dea, Arieff Yong, Rhys William and Mat Dan.
For the MOMC Malaysia Trip 2022, participants had travelled from the UK, Germany, Hungary, The Netherlands, the United Arab Emirates, South Africa and Australia to undertake a road trip together.
"After two years of long-distance virtual sharing, we're thrilled to finally be able to do so on-location in Malaysia now that travel borders have reopened", says Jackie, adding that some of them are only meeting for the first time.
"I wanted true experts at Malaysian cuisine, who actually cook for a living. It is one thing to be a TV chef or a YouTuber or food blogger, it's another thing to cook food that people will pay money to eat," said Jackie about the choices that were made to pool together the chefs for the project.
"We also needed diversity in expertise, so you'll find all our chefs specialise in different aspects of Malaysian cuisine, for example, vegan chef Dave Murugaya is on a mission to 'veganise' all his favourite Malaysian hawker food.
"I've spent my entire career specialising in Malaysian hawker food and tweaking the dishes to be pork-free (she doesn't eat pork), Debbie Teoh is one of the most highly-acclaimed Nyonya chefs in the world, Chef Ismail is all about traditional Malay food and Michelin-trained Chef Rene specialises in modern Malay cuisine."
She added that it helped if a chef already had a dedicated online audience since MOMC started during the Covid-19 lockdown.
"A lot of our focus has been on online content and virtual live-streaming," said Jackie.
Jackie, daughter of parents who used to be hawkers, enthused that the chefs want to do more Street Food Journeys to correctly represent Malaysian food and to honour the forgotten true masters who toil for decades with little or no recognition.
Among the first to arrive in Malaysia from the UK is Zaleha. "Personally, I am super excited!" chuffed Zaleha, adding that she was very honoured to be part of the team.
Sharing her excitement is Hungary-based Mazna Merten, a food entrepreneur famed for her Mazna Premium, who is meeting Jackie for the first time after two years of interacting online.
"I am very excited to be spending my time with Jackie, who is very experienced with Malaysian cuisine and an expert in hawker food. This is also a great travel experience and opportunity to learn from the master and meet many like-minded people. There will be so many possibilities on ways to market our Malaysian food to the world and share our views."
Speaking about their journey together through the pandemic, Jackie says: "Now, I get to work with a group of people who are on the same path as me, and rather than compete with them, we get to build each other up and cheer each other on."