Intangible heritage
BWM Talk Series: Preserving Our Culinary Heritage – Herbal Tea
Organized by Badan Warisan Malaysia.
Live Webinar Details
Date: Saturday, 19 February 2022
Time: 4:00 PM (Kuala Lumpur, GMT+8)
Topic: Preserving Our Culinary Heritage: Herbal Tea
Speaker: Professor Dr. Shahrim Ab Karim
Moderator: Delima Mohd Khalid
Venue: Virtual – Zoom Webinar
Free Admission
ABOUT THE TALK
Local herbs have lent their benefits for generations. They are used in cooking, steeped into teas, and are consumed for medicinal purposes. Although they are aromatically suggestive, some of our herbs are more potent to the olfactory sense as the fragrances linger for long, for example when boiling pandan tea in the kitchen, the whole house would be delightfully perfumed with the sweet natural pandan scent. Besides tingling our senses with their aromas, local herbs are also invigorating to the overall health of the body when used for detoxification.
Some of us may be unaware of all the tremendous benefits local herbs have to offer or their significance in our lives have been overlooked. Lemongrass and pandan tea for instance, are a soothing concoction of flavours and their aromas have chemical properties that rejuvenate the body and mind. Lemongrass is known for its anti-cancer properties and works as a healing agent. Pandan is rich in vitamin A and carotenoids (antioxidants), and is synonymously used to calm headaches, earaches, and also works for controlling blood sugar level.
This live talk will further discuss the benefits of other local herbs such as ginger, aloe vera, torch ginger, and butterfly pea flowers, followed by a cooking demonstration of various types of herbal teas during the webinar.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Prof. Dr. Shahrim Ab Karim is a Professor of Malaysia Heritage Food and Culture at the Department of Food Service Management, Faculty of Food Science and Technology at Universiti Putra Malaysia. He has contributed to the development of the Malaysia heritage food and marketing the food internationally.
Shahrim has served in various national committees on food heritage and is dedicated towards documentation and refining the national heritage food. He also hosted and appeared on various cooking shows in Malaysia and abroad. So far, he has published six cookbooks, highlighting the traditional food. His research interests include Foodservice Management, Food Tourism, Food Culture, and Heritage Food. He conducts both the quantitative and qualitative research methods. During his spare time, he loves to cook and travel for food, enjoys food styling and photography and he paints on canvas as well.
ABOUT THE MODERATOR
Delima Mohd Khalid is trained in the Arts and Humanities, and she has a Masters degree in Coexistence and Conflict. Delima is especially interested in humanitarian work and the effects of conflict and trauma on mental health. She has worked with marginalised groups both locally and abroad, focusing particularly on vulnerable children and youth. She is currently the Project Lead for Community Development in Thrive Well, a mental health social enterprise.
Taking full advantage of her mother’s filled-to-the-brim garden, Delima has experimented making nasi goreng bunga kantan, pegaga, and mulberry tea and a party favourite – bunga telang, mint, and lime punch.
BWM Talk Series: Preserving Our Culinary Heritage – Reminiscing on Herbal Rice a.k.a Nasi Ulam
Organized by Badan Warisan Malaysia.
Live Webinar Details
Date: Saturday, 29 January 2022
Time: 4:00 PM (Kuala Lumpur, GMT+8)
Topic: Preserving Our Culinary Heritage: Reminiscing on Herbal Rice a.k.a Nasi Ulam
Speaker: Prof. Dr. Shahrim Ab Karim
Moderator: Delima Mohd Khalid
Venue: Virtual – Zoom Webinar
Free Admission
ABOUT THE TALK
This live talk will explore the uniqueness of a delightful and authentic Malaysian food called Nasi Ulam. Having experience in tasting and cooking four different Nasi Ulam from various states – North, South and East of Malaysia, Prof. Dr. Shahrim will explain the varieties of each Nasi Ulam – their ingredients, differences as well as its uniqueness, followed by a cooking demonstration during the webinar.
Typically, Nasi Ulam is prepared using selected traditional herbs or ulam that can be found in the wild or in one’s garden. It can be eaten with various dishes, from Rendang to Sambal Udang, and each dish will complement and give a distinct flavour to the Nasi Ulam. In Melaka, Nasi Ulam is popular among the Baba and Nyonya. It is very special, yet very simple to prepare.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Prof. Dr. Shahrim Ab Karim is a Professor of Malaysia Heritage Food and Culture at the Department of Food Service Management, Faculty of Food Science and Technology at Universiti Putra Malaysia. He has contributed to the development of the Malaysia heritage food and marketing the food internationally.
Shahrim has served in various national committees on food heritage and is dedicated towards documentation and refining the national heritage food. He also hosted and appeared on various cooking shows in Malaysia and abroad. So far, he has published six cookbooks, highlighting the traditional food. His research interests include Foodservice Management, Food Tourism, Food Culture, and Heritage Food. He conducts both the quantitative and qualitative research methods. During his spare time, he loves to cook and travel for food, enjoys food styling and photography and he paints on canvas as well.
ABOUT THE MODERATOR
Delima Mohd Khalid is trained in the Arts and Humanities, and she has a Masters degree in Coexistence and Conflict. Delima is especially interested in humanitarian work and the effects of conflict and trauma on mental health. She has worked with marginalised groups both locally and abroad, focusing particularly on vulnerable children and youth. She is currently the Project Lead for Community Development in Thrive Well, a mental health social enterprise.
Taking full advantage of her mother’s filled-to-the-brim garden, Delima has experimented making nasi goreng bunga kantan, pegaga, and mulberry tea and a party favourite – bunga telang, mint, and lime punch.
Talk on The Future of Intangible Knowledge with Reference to Pua Kumbu by Dr. Welyne J. Jehom
ABOUT THE TALK
The importance of intangible cultural heritage is the wealth of knowledge and skills that is transmitted through it from one generation to the next. Pua kumbu, a tie and natural dye resist textile in Sarawak, has long been known as sacred traditional cloths woven on backstrap looms by the Iban women weavers. As an aesthetic material culture, the pua kumbu possesses a unique identity that carries the legend, stories and rhymes that are inseparable from the traditional Iban cosmology and belief system. Once a ritualistic cloth, at present day, the pua kumbu has become only the symbol of Iban identity and cultural pride because of transformations in their belief system, way of life and education.
The knowledge and skills in the production of pua kumbu are becoming very scarce amongst the young generation of Iban women, most of whom treat this intangible cultural heritage as the knowledge and skills of their grandmothers. It is becoming a dying art. Collective memory seems to be the only way to restore the fragments of knowledge and skills of pua kumbu production – identification of the name of design, motif, rhyme and story for each design ever produced in the past. The application of memories of pua kumbu narratives as the path to identify each pua kumbu ever produced is guarded by traditional intellectual property rights owned by families who have the recognized ownership of designs; it can give both positive and negative impacts in the work of conservation and restoration of the knowledge.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Dr. Welyne Jeffrey Jehom is currently under the Department Of Anthropology And Sociology in the Faculty Of Arts And Social Sciences of the University of Malaya.
She is of Bidayuh descent, born and raised in Kuching, Sarawak. She is motivated to be in the academic world in an effort to prove the highest of education qualifications is achievable despite having limited resources available and being a woman – one needs is the motivation. Therefore, in Dr. Welyne’s research in recent years, she focuses on problems that hinders development and the progress of the community she is dear to, and research that deals with the development of the community from within
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