A graceful sweetness
This difference arises from the complexity of Southeast-Asian cuisine. For example, taro-scented pandan leaf can be used to make tea, cook rice, or make sweets—it is the most commonly used herb in the region. Meanwhile, food ingredients derived from the ubiquitous coconut palm include richly fragrant shredded coconut, coconut milk, and coconut oil. Also, the butterfly pea flower, which can give food a bright coloring, often appears in Southeast-Asian snacks.
Another element is palm sugar. Southeast-Asian palm sugars are subtle ingredients that play a key role in local pastries. Varieties include gula jawa (made from the coconut palm, Cocos nucifera), gula aren (from the aren palm, Arenga pinnata), gula lontar (from the palmyra palm, Borassus flabellifer), and gula nipa (from the nipa palm, Nypa fruticans). The plants from which these sugars are made are all members of the palm family (Arecaceae), but each belongs to a different genus. Their flavors are slightly different, but even Southeast Asians often cannot tell them apart.
The natural refining methods by which they are extracted produce sugars that are richly fragrant, are of relatively low sweetness, and have varied layers of taste. People never tire of them, and they add deep and subtle variations to Southeast-Asian food.
Angeline Tan, a culinary expert from Malaysia who is a long-term resident in Taiwan, often visits Southeast Asia to study dietary cultures. She shares the following with us: “[Austronesian peoples] begin gathering sap from the flower-bud stems of coconut palms in the early morning before sunrise to avoid direct sunlight, which would turn it sour. They strain the sap into a large pan and heat it over a charcoal fire until all the water has evaporated. Then they pour the resulting syrup into a container woven from coconut leaves, where it solidifies and is preserved. The traditional production process is done entirely by hand.”
According to Tan’s research, the use of these natural sugars originated among Austronesian peoples and later spread to other ethnic groups. However, today, in different regions and among different nationalities in Southeast Asia, and even between different generations, people use sugar in different ways and their habits cannot be covered by a single description. In general, in the case of coconut palm sugar, because the biggest production area is Amphawa in Thailand, Thai cuisine frequently uses this flavor. Indonesia, meanwhile, has coconut palm sugar (gula jawa), aren palm sugar (gula aren), and palmyra palm sugar (gula lontar). In Cambodia and Laos, where the aren palm flourishes, they mainly use aren palm sugar. In Cambodia the economic value of this sugar is such that it is known as the “national sugar.” Why is nipa palm sugar (gula nipa) relatively rare? It is because people prefer eating the seeds that develop after flowering over cutting the stems to harvest the sap.
With economic development, people in wealthy nations such as Singapore have largely switched to refined white sugar. However in recent years gula jawa, which is representative of palm sugars, has been found by some scientists to have a glycemic index of only 35, making it “healthier” than white sugar. As a result it has become popular in the West as a health food and is selling so well that supply from production areas can’t keep up with demand.
The considerable commercial opportunities associated with Southeast-Asian sugars have attracted some Taiwanese to head to Southeast Asia to attempt to cultivate palm trees and produce these sugars, with some companies even coming out with sweets or pastries that use their products. We may not yet have noticed this trend, but like the graceful role that sweetness plays in Southeast-Asian foods, these sugars and the desserts they are used in are subtly becoming part of our daily lives.
Angeline Tan frequently travels to explore the dietary cultures of different lands.
The palmyra palms of Southeast Asia are one of the sources of natural sugars. (courtesy of Angeline Tan)
The bubur cha cha served by Angeline Tan is made with ingredients that include bananas (symbolizing wealth), sweet potatoes (cut into diamond shapes), cassava (naturally colored with red from roses), and sago. Finally, she flavors the dish with gula aren sugar. The result is a layered taste and sweetness that never fails to please.