Mary Gomes

Mary Gomes learnt to cook from her mother and aunts. This was in the days of hand-grinding spices, scraping coconut, with no more help than a kuali and cleaver in the traditional Eurasian kitchen. No such modern accoutrement such as a blender or cake mixer. When she married her Chinese husband, she learnt the secrets of the nonya kitchen from her mother-in-law. Before long, she was fixing Sunday meals for her extended family and the community of St. Joseph’s Church on Victoria Street, a bastion of the Eurasian community in Singapore.

Since the publication of her first cookbook, Mary has been a feature in heritage festivals, cooking classes and demonstrations and has even participated in The Pasar Malam Besar, the largest Eurasian festival in the world held annually at The Hague in the Netherlands.