Yayu Slocock shows off her cooking skills in a kitchen designed by her son. (Photo courtesy of Yayu Slocock)
Wimborne, a small town with 15,000 inhabitants in Dorset in southwest England, is a far stretch from Indonesia. But it is here that Indonesian-born Yayu Slocock has settled down with her family and started a mission to introduce the wonders of Indonesian cuisine to England and the world.
While throughout Europe, Asian cuisines such as Chinese, Japanese, Indian and Thai have already garnered many fans, Indonesia still remains a blank spot on the culinary map — something Yayu wants to change, step by step.
Born in Blitar, East Java, Yayu was introduced to traditional Javanese dishes by her mother, grandmother and great-grandmother, and was later exposed to the cuisines of other Indonesian regions during her travels through the archipelago.
“I started to understand food during those days and began to learn more and more,” she said. “So I started to cook from a very young age.”
She was recently in Indonesia with UK Trade and Investment, which helps UK-based companies succeed in a global economy. While in Indonesia, Yayu and her husband Chris met with media representatives and government officials to develop international publicity for local cuisine and promote her first cookbook, “Yayu’s Simply Indonesian.”
When she was a teenager, Yayu and her family moved to Australia where she finished her high school and also pursued university studies in biochemistry, which eventually landed her a job at Esso. It was there that she met her husband-to-be for the first time.
“We’d only known each other for a few days and then he had to go back to England,” Yayu recalled with a laugh.
But the connection between the pair was too strong to let go, and just talking over the phone quickly became too expensive during a time when e-mails and Skype didn’t exist yet.
“He then asked me to marry him a year later and that’s when I went to the UK,” she said about her decision to just pack up her bags and move to yet another continent 26 years ago. “It might sound crazy, but I think if you love someone, you just know it’s right.”
Although Yayu didn’t follow the path of becoming a professional chef at first, she never abandoned her passion for food and cooking, and refined her skills during her time in Australia.
“I even worked part-time for a Japanese restaurant, McDonald’s and an Australian pub, so I’ve seen it all,” she said, adding that it was valuable to add more skills to her resume. “I even learned how to mix cocktails, even though I don’t drink alcohol; I just love preparing the drinks. From the Japanese restaurant, I learned how to present the food in a way that it looks beautiful.”
Yayu is an intuitive cook, rarely having had to use given measurements or follow a recipe strictly step by step.
When she joined her husband in the UK, Yayu immediately started to fully focus on cooking — catering for charity events, parties and social gatherings, although she admitted that she had to adjust to the local taste.
“I didn’t use too much chili because Europeans were not used to eating spicy food,” she said.
With every gathering that she catered for, more and more people approached Yayu and expressed an interest in her native cuisine.
Soon she found herself conducting cooking classes called “A Taste of Rasa Sayang,” and at the same time mastered the art of developing recipes that used locally produced ingredients only and therefore replaced those she could only find back in her home country. Yayu, by this time a mother of two sons and a daughter, happily experimented with herbs and spices, testing out new recipes on family and friends and eagerly factoring in their feedback.
“I love sharing,” she said.
Her students are a colorful mix of origin and age. Her oldest student, she said, is a 95-year-old woman from Wimborne.
“She never tried Asian food in her life, but she really loved Indonesian food,” Yayu said.
It is something all her students seem to have in common. They are often amazed by what they can achieve after having joined “A Taste of Rasa Sayang” with Yayu.
“I will never buy spring rolls again having tasted what I can make myself, with Yayu’s help,” said Sue Webb, one of the participants of Yayu’s cooking class.
Since last year, Yayu has been teaching out of her own home.
“My new kitchen was designed by my son,” she said, adding that he not only built her a kitchen but also an adjoining dining room that can seat up to 45 people — perfect for cooking classes and dinner parties.
“I also taught my son’s girlfriend how to cook Indonesian food,” Yayu said with a smile.
“She never liked to cook before, but now she’s become quite good at it and my son is happy too!”
It was perhaps only natural that the idea to write a cookbook eventually formed in her head.
“It was a long process until I finally finished the book,” said Yayu, who also teaches courses on how to make botanical watercolor illustrations.
“Yayu’s Simply Indonesian” is a colorful cookbook that features recipes for dishes from all over the archipelago, divided into several categories including starters, poultry, meat, fish, vegetarian, desserts and drinks. Many of the recipes — each also accompanied by a beautiful photograph — come with a little paragraph to say where they come from, if there are any variations or some additional tips and tricks that come in handy, especially for those who still don’t have that much cooking experience.
An extra, very informative and helpful chapter of the book serves as an introduction to the world of fruits, vegetables, herbs and spices used in Indonesian cuisine.
“I want to teach people how to cook authentic but simple dishes the traditional Indonesian way,” Yayu said. “I feel that today’s generation has somewhat lost this approach to our traditional cuisine.”
A lot of people also opt to eat out instead of cooking at home, while Yayu likes to advocate home-cooked meals as they are generally healthier and, of course, much easier on the wallet in the long run.
With her first cookbook on the market, Yayu is already in the process of creating the next one.
“I have about 800 recipes that I would like to share,” she said, adding that she planned to write a whole series on Indonesian dishes and also use her time in Indonesia to go photo hunting for her upcoming books.
Yayu is optimistic that she can help pave the way for Indonesian cuisine to make a grand entrance into Europe.
“There are thousands of islands in Indonesia, each with their own rich culinary traditions,” she explained.
“At least, in my little town, I have succeeded already. People there love Indonesian food.”
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