BeanScene Magazine

Poh Ling Yeow’s relationship with coffee started on shaky grounds. She grew up in the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur, among the colourful street food culture of hybrid Malay, Indian and Chinese culture.

Coffee and I have had a checkered history,” she says. “When I was just a teeny, tiny, girl, my grandma or mum would take me to the wet markets, which I hated because of the smell. To this day, I find it incredibly difficult to tolerate – and as I child I would cry hysterically if so much as a dot of the mystery goo flicked onto one of my toes.”

To console her, Poh’s grandma would pour some of her sweet, strong black coffee into a saucer for her to drink, sometimes eating kaya (coconut jam) toast with it.

After that first coffee experienc, Poh continued to drink it throughout her childhood. “I drank foul, strong coffee relatively often through late primary school,” she says.

Offering coffee to children at a young age, Poh explains, is quite acceptable among Asian parents. She didn’t stop until the 1980s when she became a Mormon – a religion that strictly forbids any caffeine consumption. 

But, when Poh and her partner left the church in her mid 20s, she reunited with caffeine. “Even though we couldn’t afford it, we rushed out and bought an expensive coffee machine to fuel our newly acquired vice,” Poh recalls.

And so, the love affair resparked. These days, while filming her second series of Poh’s Kitchen On the Road and adding new paintings to her growing collection as an aspiring artist, Poh kick-starts her day with a strong mug of flat white with full cream milk. She avoids adding sugar, although says she is often tempted to eat something sweet with it.

Poh proudly boasts that she’s perfected the use of her stovetop espresso maker. “Obviously, it’s not a complex bit of machinery, but I got tips from baristas that translate even to the simple device like I have – tamping and adjusting the heat,” she says. “I prefer to make my own coffee because I love the ritual. It makes me feel like I can face the day.”

Poh reflects on the development of the ‘home barista’ – similar to the wave of home cooks that have ignited the culinary industry over the last three years. She remembers the time throughout the 1980s, off the back of an upsurge in food and cooking shows, when no one owned expensive machines and when instant coffee was more the norm.

Now, she says, home coffee machines are a common household appliance. “If you think about it, it’s quite an expensive habit,” she says. “I remember when mobile phones started coming in and I was complaining about a $50 a month plan as a university student. But, then realised I was spending twice that amount on coffee. In a world that only seems to be growing faster, coffee is our number one addiction.”

Poh says the coffee scene in Australia, with its flat whites, cappuccinos, and espressos, is vastly different to her home country. “Coffee in Malaysia is essentially made like Turkish coffee,” she says. “Fine grains are boiled and then strained out. It’s often taken black, but commonly mixed with evaporated and condensed milk, so the flavour is extremely sweet and part of the street food culture.”
Unlike Australians who savour their coffee experience, Poh says it’s uncommon for Malaysians to sit around appreciating or discussing the nuances in the flavour of their drinks. “I would say that Malaysians are more connoisseurs of Laksa, not coffee,” she says.

Along with her parents and brother, Poh spent the first nine years of her life in Kuala Lumpur before the family migrated to South Australia in 1982, where she now lives and works. Poh says coming to Australia was quite an adjustment, but also a blessing.

“I always felt a stranger in my own land and when my parents announced we were migrating, I had a very vivid thought that life would finally make sense to me,” she recalls. “I loved Australia the moment we landed, even the street signs were beautiful to me. I was never teased for being different. I found Australian kids very kind to me. The times I suffered feeling different were very much self-imposed. I desperately wanted to be blonde and blue eyed and I hated everything about myself that made me feel different.”

As a fifth-generation Chinese Malaysian, Poh’s upbringing was strict and structured. Despite having a keen interest in cooking from a young age, it was a slow process before the talented home-cook was given full rights to the kitchen. “My mum didn’t let me into the kitchen to cook until I was nine and even then I was confined to baking,” she says. To satisfy her curiosity, Poh would help pluck herbs and do other menial tasks, and remembers the kitchen as an active place where she loved to watch meals getting prepared.

Poh’s describes the food culture in her home as “obsessed”. Reminiscing about the diverse and vibrant use of exotic ingredients and aromas, Poh recalls one of her favourite cooking memories with her family – making joong or zongzi, pyramid shaped, sticky rice dumplings. “It’s a big job that requires a communal effort, so all the womenfolk in the family would gather together to make them from morning till night,” she says. This cooking influence from her mum and aunty still resonates strongly with Poh.

From a young age, Poh was studious and buried her head in books because of restrictions on her social life. She admits however, that she was a hopeless daydreamer. “Socially I was definitely on the periphery, not persecuted but not popular either,” she says. “I went to an all-girls school so boys were practically mythical, but occasionally my brother would bring friends home and from memory I immediately developed a crush on every single one of them.”

Poh went on to complete a Bachelor of Design, specialising in illustration at the University of South Australia. She freelanced as a graphic designer and illustrator but says it was only about five years ago when her interest in food intensified and she couldn’t deny her passion to pursue it as a career. “I became so obsessed I would keep myself awake, dreaming up menus and pairing obscure ingredients together in my head,” she says.

Her passion soon translated onto the TV screen when she appeared on the first series of hit show Masterchef Australia in 2009. Her energetic personality burst through to home viewers and Poh went on to the finals where she was runner-up against Julie Goodwin. Best known for her Buddha’s Delight, Century Egg dish and Abacus Beads, as well as her entertaining presence and artistic abilities, it was clear that in Poh’s case, coming second to Julie wouldn’t be the end of her foodie career.

Poh soon claimed her independence as a celebrity-cook and was approached by the ABC to present her own TV show called Poh’s Kitchen. The show is a culinary adventure, where Poh meets some of Australia’s finest producers and chefs, inviting them to cook with her in her kitchen and share their appreciation for fresh local produce. Poh also released her first cookbook in 2010 titled Poh’s Kitchen: My Cooking Adventures, which sat at the top of the bestsellers list for six weeks.

Looking back on the whirlwind that was Masterchef, Poh says the most valuable lesson she took away from that experience was a conviction in her ideas and to never underestimate what adrenalin could do for her performance. While undoubtedly it was this reality show that put Poh on the national stage as a celebrity-cooking icon, she says that behind the camera lenses and guest appearances comes a side of realism that is often overlooked.

“The perception everyone has [is] that being in the media must be all fun and games,” she says. “Don’t get me wrong, I feel incredibly lucky, but it all comes at a cost and fighting to remain an individual and not turn into a bit of driftwood is hard work.”

Off the screen, in her own private sanctum, Poh is a talented artist who experiments with acrylic paints and explores her Malaysian origin through the stroke of a paint brush. Poh has been painting since highschool and started painting professionally in 2002. She is in her ninth year of exhibiting as a painter. Poh has over 20 highly successful exhibitions under her belt, most recently completing an exhibition at Hill Smith Gallery in Adelaide.

There are a lot of parallels to be drawn from Poh’s artwork and cooking: her artistic skill, eye for detail and creative presentation. “You want to create something that tastes great, looks great but also challenges notions of, say, sweet and savoury, flavours that joust, yet harmonise. Any good art plays with these concepts, the types of discipline you call upon are also similar.”

Poh admits maintaining a balance between her cooking career and life as an artist is challenging. Her TV commitments are a full-time project, but so is her art. “I’ve just had to omit sleep to paint for exhibitions but its legitimately part of my career,” she says. “There was never any question about me giving it up, it’s something that’s taken me almost a decade to build and I did it on my own so I guard it very fiercely.”

Looking forward to 2012, Poh already has a second cookbook in the making and plans to produce a collection of artwork inspired by the theme ‘community’. “I never have grand plans, I always have a huge amount of gratitude for what I already have and I work like a dog,” she says.

“I lived an amazing life before all of this TV craziness and I live a different and amazing life now.”