This is not a typical cook book.

It isn’t crammed with hundreds of dishes that you can whip up in 30 minutes. It doesn’t tell you that its recipes are the 'best' versions. It isn’t even going to promise that everyone at the table will love it, because that would spoil the surprise.

This book is about learning – not just from the mistakes, but also from the ingredients, the process, and the ones who got you to stand in front of a stove.  It is also about the stories, the sweat and the swearing that only a kitchen can create.

But most of all, this book is about cooking, and those who live to tell the tale.

When we – Foong Li Mei and Szetoo Weiwen – started this project in July 2013, our aim was simple: to capture the stories behind every day home cooks and their recipes so that they will live on in the pages, and hopefully, someone else’s kitchen.

Hence, we started knocking on kitchen doors around Malaysia in search of the lives and flavours of unique cooking characters. We ended up documenting much more than that - slices of culture, identity, history, and personalities that showed us we are what we cook.

The authors: Weiwen (left) and Li Mei

We are giving all we can to produce a book that is worthy of the marvelous stories that were shared with us. We have already paid for most of the creative production, such as adding full-page illustrations to every story, page layout, editing and so on. We’ve even secured a printer who offers the best price-to-quality ratio.

However, there is still one final step to making this book a reality – printing it. This is where we need your support. Your contribution on our campaign can take us through the last leg of completing this project. If you can see the value of helping us out, the right of this page details the various amounts that you can contribute. 

All backers will get physical copies of the book. On top of that, each book comes with a set of FREE limited edition illustrated postcards! 

About the book

The Food that Makes Us features:

• 10 essays with photographs exploring the stories behind home cooks and their specialty dishes, including Hainanese chicken rice, achar, popiah, tuak, pork belly confit, fish stew in bamboo by the native Semelai tribe, putu mayam and so on
• 10 recipes, with step-by-step pictures as guide
• 10 full-page artistic interpretations of each story by Malaysian illustrator Tuan Nini
• Full-colour pages

The project was published as a series called ‘Cooking People’ in a Malaysian tablet magazine, The B-Side, from August 2013 to May 2014. Now that the magazine has ceased operation, the authors hope to keep the stories, recipes and spirit of the cooks alive by compiling them into this book.

What We Need 

As mentioned, the book is almost good to go – we are in the final stages of editing, layout and producing the artwork.

Now, we just need the funds to print 1,000 copies of the book in its full-colour glory, as well as to cover the marketing costs.

If we meet our funding goal of US$4,800, this is how we plan to put it to good use:

• US$3800 will go to printing the book
• US$400 will cover the fees and charges of using Indiegogo
• US$600 will cover the cost of the book launch event and other marketing efforts

For Malaysian readers preferring to pay in the local currency, they can also pre-order the book here - the funds we get from the pre-orders will also help us go to print sooner.

Pinky Promises

In the case that we cannot hit our funding target, any contributions you have made will still go to the printing of the book. As we have already invested tons of waking hours, sweat and money into this project, we will persist in going all the way, even if it means seeking other sources of financing or adjusting the number of prints. Hence, don’t worry – you will still get physical copies of the book and other perks for your pledges no matter if we reach our goals or not. 

Extra Hands, and Extra Mouths 

It's okay if you don't feel like contributing financially, there are other ways to help us! You can simply just give our campaign a shout out among your friends and family, or share it on your social network. The share tools are right up there at the top of the page, and we'll appreciate it immensely if you can help spread our project and our story.