Jimmy Shu was born in Sri Lanka about 60 years ago when it was  a virtual melting pot of several continents’ flavours.

Imagine the combination of Hindu vegetarian food, exquisite curries, chillies, flavours from South-East Asia and noodles from China. It was an exciting time of discovery for young Jimmy.

Jim’s Dad, Andrew Shu, started his restaurant in Sri Lanka in 1946, just in time for Jimmy’s birth in 1949.

With Chinese parents, he was raised in this restaurant on tantalising curry and noodle dishes.  Jimmy watched his dad accumulate a large “food family,” members of which regularly went on a tantalizing food journey.  Menus were changed regularly to prevent boredom and customers appreciated it.

Years later, Jimmy found it easy to gather his own food family and impress them with variety and flavor from all parts of the continent, Asia and the Pacific.

Andrew Shu taught Jimmy how to be passionate about ingredients and condiments, tempting palates of patrons by romancing the chili, the noodle and curry pot.

He is proud to have been a part of changing the way people view curries and noodles in several countries, including Sri Lanka and Australia.

“I watched Dad pioneer soy bean manufacturing and noodle making, going on to operate one of the country’s most successful restaurants,” said Jimmy.

Mr Shu imported the first noodle machine into Sri Lanka.

Making 20kg of egg noodles each morning

Customers got a liking for noodle dishes and before long, the lad’s  morning work included making 20 kg of real egg noodles for their restaurant, Modern Chinese Café, that was fast becoming a trend-setter.

The secret was to use just the right amount of eggs to bind the noodles, otherwise it would break apart.  This daily noodle grind, far from putting the lad off food, delivered the Shu family a wide circle of friends, based on conversation and love of good food.

Jim expresses it this way: “Food has no restrictive borders. It breaks down barriers and makes people decent and tolerant. We should call this business, chefs without frontiers.”

Jimmy came to learn that the Shu family had suffered privations and economic hardships.  It apparently made them innovative and people oriented, not unlike many Chinese cooks the world over.

So what hardships influenced the trainee cook?

In between cooking, his dad worked as a silk merchant for a couple of years, push-biking his cloth wares around Sri Lanka.  Jimmy has memories of the gent pedalling behind the coke delivery truck, collecting the fuel that fell to the roadway when it was being unloaded to customers.  This coke fuelled his restaurant at night.  Andrew became well known for pioneering the manufacture of soy bean sauce, noodle manufacturing and a new dish featuring crab meat.  He had the “midas touch” according to Jimmy, and deserved his success, becoming like a “food-father,” the head of a giant “food-family.”  Getting opinions from customers became mandatory. Jimmy learnt to ask for feedback at an early age.

It was an excellent grounding and inspires the grateful son to this day.

Working at one of his early restaurants in Malaysia, a customer raved about a fish curry cooked by someone else, many kilometers away.  Fully curious, Jimmy travelled six hours to get a taste of this dish that he described as “truly divine.” It gave him more menu ideas.

Many Chinese chefs seem innovative and we think we have discovered the reason why.

Jimmy thinks it is because they were nomads for centuries, being prepared to try anything in case it made money, which it often did.

He has a theory on this. The Chinese had influences that recent British and others missed out on.

Cruel dynasties and centuries of suffering, made nomadic and wandering Chinese very versatile. They dug deep, invented gunpowder and fireworks and made explosively hot curries.

In the food department, wandering Chinese learnt to be versatile and make do with what they had. Often misunderstood, they tackled the problem by being cooking innovators, tempting with spiced dishes.

Passion with a ladle and a pot on an open fire became passion and experimentation in the kitchen.  They dug deep into the world of cooking and condiments.

Excited by raw materials

Jim excitedly talks of his raw materials: “Lemongrass used to grow wild at my home in Sri Lanka but in Melbourne in 1980, lemon grass was a rare herb. I used to grab it whenever I saw it but today we have the luxury of bulk lemongrass.

“Australian lemongrass is so prolific and superior as a product that I expect the day to come when we export it back to Asia.  “Then we began using another ingredient called galangal, a type of ginger.”

“I felt like a tradesmen looking for the best materials.  “I discovered that migrants were prepared to grow the rice and herbs I needed to get authentic flavours,” said Jimmy.

It wasn’t always that easy however.

Passion for herbs resulted in Jimmy breaking the law while heading through Melbourne airport on a flight from Singapore 20 years ago.

Customs officers sniffed out some galangal (a type of ginger, a rhizome from the tuber family), stuffed in a pair of sneakers that Jimmy was trying to sneak through.

He was scolded and walked off with his head bowed, feeling like a food criminal.

Discovering galangal

Shortly thereafter Jimmy discovered Vietnamese gardeners with boxes of galangal they had grown in the suburb of Richmond. The  herb had almost brought him undone but thanks to Vietnamese migrants, he would no longer take crazy risks.

Before Jimmy Shu migrated down under in 1974, an Australian immigration official advised: “Don’t start your restaurant until you have worked for someone else.”

It proved invaluable. For four years he followed this advice while learning the trade from the bottom to the top.

“You learn best by washing dishes. It allows you to see everything that is going on. I washed, cooked and cleaned up, always looking over my shoulder to learn how things were done,” explained Jimmy.

He worked very hard, doing three jobs and saved up enough money to start a restaurant joint partnership called Shakahari, in Lygon Street, Carlton in 1982.

After a short time they opened a second restaurant, then a third, and a fourth, until Jim had a total of eight under his belt.

Four were in Melbourne, one in Alice Springs, one in Darwin, with two in Malaysia.

People quickly voted with their feet, knives and forks

Take Melbourne’s very popular, first-ever noodle shop in Claredon Street, South Melbourne. It is not surprising that Jimmy worked there back in 1984. He developed new ideas and put them to work for patrons at his next eight restaurants.

“I was grateful that migrants are quick to come on my food journey but it doesn’t take long for the rest of the population to catch on and make our menus very popular.

Avoiding boredom in Darwin and the Alice

Darwin and Alice Springs are apparently easy places in which to get innovative. Both have large migrant populations with Asians always prepared to go on a food journey.

Jimmy named both restaurants Hanuman, with each specializing in Thai and Tandoori cuisines.  Inner Brisbane has 166 food outlets offering curry and many also feature noodles. Sydney by comparison has 447 and Melbourne has reached 475.

Migrants and yuppies have helped make Australian foodies very cosmopolitan. They’ve been spoilt and now they come to expect it.

It’s not surprising that Jimmy Shu has been appointed as one of two food ambassadors for the Northern Territory.

The other official NT foodie is Athol Wark, of South African background, a bush tucker expert and senior lecturer at the Charles Darwin University in Alice Springs.

He recently returned from the USA where role of food ambassador had him promoting Australian and definitively Northern Territory produce such as barramundi fish and lobster.

Jimmy did similarly back in 2005. Exquisitely presented food gives tourists an additional reason to flock to the NT and the Government recognizes this.

Hence, tourists are getting their taste buds tantalized at the instigation of Territory officials.

Countless chefs and restaurants recycle ideas but not everyone sets the food agenda. Aussies are very welcoming of restaurants that set the agenda and refuse to blend with the furniture.

It brings palates alive and sets the tongues wagging, very necessary if you are to have food without frontiers and many overlapping food-families.

Why the addiction to chilli?

Why do some people crave spicy foods, chillies, curries, noodles and so forth while others go through life never wanting to challenge their taste buds?

Jimmy Shu has put forward a plausible theory.

After years of tempting foodies, he concludes that a palate corrupted by eating chillies and curries seems to turn a person into a discerning eater. He has noticed that the more his customers like chilli and curry, the more they need variety and spice. It’s all in the “corruption of the palate”, he says.

It is well known that chilli speeds up your metabolism, plus the hot little critters are a rich source of vitamin C and it might even work against the formation of cancer cells.

Nutritionists also claim that chilli helps fight pain and eases nasal congestion.

Just imagine it. When we put chilli in our cooking, we may be promoting good health, as well as good conversation.

Ever since the Portuguese brought chilli to India, after trading with Mexico, people have been learning to eat like the Maharajah. You also can “try it”:

“Food needs to be cooked properly and beautifully presented however I go further than that. I want people to go home and still be able to remember the taste. That is my motivation,” said Jimmy.

And if you can still remember the conversation a few days later, then the Jimmys of this world have achieved food without frontiers.

There is so much diversity in culture on this earth that someone must have wished for a  cooking competition to settle disputes between nations, reports John Sanderson.’

Notice how sport gives disadvantaged countries the chance to unite and feel good about themselves and make up for injustices. Just imagine the Iraqi soccer team practicing their little hearts out, hoping their efforts bring peace. Could it work for those that love fruit, vegetables and cooking.

Visiting northern Cyprus

With this in mind I visited Cyprus, my wife’s country of origin with its rolling mountains of limestone that can make your heart race if you are an expatriate. I was looking forward to seeing vineyards and paddocks of okra. We were staying in the home of my brother in law in a suburb of Limasol (Lemesos), and my brother in law’s brother in law had agreed to accompany us to my father in law’s lost village, one of many taken by a Turkish invasion in 1974.

We drove north to Famagusta and soon had to pay a car insurance tax to Turkish guards at a border crossing. It was hot, balmy summer holiday weather and the Turkish personnel all looked unenthusiastic. They were collecting road tax in their steamy, non airconditioned roadside booths while their friends were frolicking in 35 degree heat on Turkish beaches.

Antonis Zaharia, my wife Desi’s sister in law’s brother in law, took the opportunity to niggle the soldiers. “why can’t you learn to speak Greek?” he offered. I tried to quieten him down so we’d get through in one piece and keep out of the evening news. It was exciting because we were going “home” to Desi’s lost village on the mid northern Cyprus coast.

In the outer suburbs of Famagusta we drove through narrow streets built for a horse and cart, finally emerging into the modern Turkish influenced Cyprus where the invaders have gone overboard with construction, trying  to prove they have bettered the place.

Next we encountered a modern highway that meandered along the northern Cyprus coast beside the sea where hundreds of plush two storey units have been built on land, probably without the permission from the landowners.

(pictured below, our guide Antonis, on the left, catches up with the Turkish army officer who lives in his former house and eats the figs and grapes he planted before 1974.)

Housing boom?

It appears that entrepreneurial English developers and others have been cashing in on the understandable desire to own a holiday house 100 metres from the Mediterranean sea.

Most notable was an English family that built a seaside mansion on the north-eastern panhandle side of Cyprus. The real landowners  took them to court and the British court judged that the land should be restored to its original condition. The couple thought they’d bought the land “fair and square” from someone Turkish and appealed to the British High court, enlisting the help of eminent QC Cherie Blair who had the decision overturned. They reckoned that war is war and a British man’s home is his castle, even if built on stolen land. The Cypriot owners then took it to the European Court of Justice which reinstated the first decision ordering the UK couple to pay a mountain of costs. It decided the 1974 invasion did not remove the land rights of the original owners.

With this fresh in mind we turned off the road to Famagusta and meandered north through small villages with narrow streets as we sought a short cut over the mountain range. Nowadays the bush roads were sealed but they had been a nightmare for both donkeys and bus in the old days, 35 years ago.

The Bentathaktilo Range (five fingered range) seemed less intimidating and the village of Dhavlos seemed much smaller than I’d imagined. It had been renamed Kaplica by the Turkish occupiers and there were copious signs, about 20, in case someone thought they were still in Dhavlos.

The village hugged the  base of the range in the centre of the northern Cyprus coast. On a clear day you can see the Turkish mainland.

(Desi, below, is excited at her first visit to Dhavlos since the early 1970’s)

Desi began recalling her memories:

“This was my school, and this was our corner store where we played cards and told stories. Bapau had the village blacksmith shop and he loved to grow vegetables and fruit on his plots of land, including some that were half way up the mountain range. He used to take us up on his donkey and tell us stories. After school we’d walk a kilometer to the sea, scoffing figs from trees planted by Bapau along the bush track. After a swim we’d collect mollusks from rocks around the shore, eating some raw and taking others home,” remembered Desi. For economic reasons her Dad had to swap this simple, peaceful village life for noisy smelly London in order to support his wife and seven children.

Desecrated cemetery

We noticed the Orthodox church had been stripped and a large Turkish mosque adorned the centre of town. The cemetery had been dug up and turned into a ploughed allotment to try to erase any Cypriot history. The graves of grandparents on both sides of my wife’s family had fallen victim to the excavator and plough.

We inspected the wreckage of their old houses and the former blacksmith shop. Desi’s grandpa had lived in a stone and cement house but Antonis had been a builder, his being the best construction in Dhavlos. It had been given to a chap called Sevim, an officer in the Turkish army. He was representative of many Turks in Dhavlos and the northern occupied sector. Some appeared apologetic and went out of their way to meet us and shake our hands, even introducing some of their small children. The Turks had lived quite happily among the Cypriots for hundreds of years before the invasion of 1974. Up till then they’d appreciated each others’ food, recipes and culture. My wife’s babysitter had been Turkish.

Next we four visitors went to order lunch at the massive but slightly out of place, Kaplica Restaurant which was built on the shoreline below a bank of million dollar units. This is a stones throw from the ancient village however there is a serious lack of town planning and it may have been done for show because there is only ever a handful of people eating there. There are no port facilities so paying tourists can come by boat and there is no airport so these large facilities can be paid for. There is just a winding mountain road built to take donkeys and small cars. Maybe the Turkish Government has bankrolled the huge restaurant that could easily seat 500 guests and the holiday units that could billet those people if they could get there.

Sevim drove down to the restaurant and implored Antonis to come and eat at “his” home. We had already ordered but we agreed to pop in later for coffee and fruit. Then he offered to pay for our meals but we declined because I’d agreed to pick up the tab.

As expected there was a meagre 10 people seated in the marble floored Kaplica beach restaurant that could comfortably seat the entire cheer squad from England’s cricket team.

Here we enjoyed scrumptuous fish chips and salad. We’d not tasted better on our entire trip. Most of England’s chips appear to be the frozen kind but here they were home made. The fish was sweeter and fresher than anything we’d eaten thus far. Obviously the chef had time on his hands and wasn’t subject to normal commercial constraints. He offered, “hope you like the fish because I caught it yesterday. I am sorry it is a day old but it was a bit windy out in the boat today.”

(The Kaplika restaurant gave a good view of the fog that shrouded the Turkish mainland)

After lunch we called on the former home of Antonis where Sevim had coffee and fruit ready for us. It was a pleasure to see he and Antonis reminisce over the grape vines and the fig trees that produced the best fruit we’d tasted in ages. The figs had an incomparable sweetness. So back to our original introduction for this story about culture.

Can an obvious love of produce, among mankind, and a sharing of culture, ever bring about unity?

“If you come back to live here, you can live on the bottom and I can build on the roof of your house,” suggested the ex army officer but Antonis didn’t jump at the idea. Most were full of generosity and kindness and almost apologetic about the invasion of northern Cyprus.

We were eating the delicious figs and grapes grown on Antonis’ trees and vines and drinking good Turkish coffee. In the rest of the world, this beverage serves to loosen the strings of people’s hearts as they make business deals and talk and share culture and stories. It was here that I committed my major Aussie mistake of the entire journey. I love the Mediterranean greeting. I had it down to a fine art. In a climate of equal opportunity, men and women kiss on both sides of the cheek. I didn’t study the training module because if I did, I would have learnt that you don’t ever  try to kiss a Moslem chap’s wife farewell. In almost slow motion, my relatives frantically reached out to stop me. I hope Sevim can still laugh about my ignorance because my Cypriot family have been doing that.

Finally in Turkish occupied northern Cyprus, surrounded by a mountain of memories, good food, produce and culture, the ex army gent confided: “We live as Moslems here but in my heart I also feel like a Christian.” It was a comment that bridged a lot of gaps for Antonis.

The chaps hugged and kissed as Mediterranean men do, and then we were gone.

John Sanderson is a photographer, writer and editor who has spent a lifetime connecting with and challenging his readers.

He recreates history in a way that you’d think he lived way back when.

He has just spent two years writing, editing and composing Australia’s most widely circulating national produce and farming newspaper, National Marketplace News.

John was nominated for journalism’s Walkley Award a few years back, so your news could not be in  better hands.

Here is John’s definitive manual on communication to assist you to examine your “talking gene” and discover its state of health.

ASNHTC – Chpts 1-14

ASNHTC – Chpts 15-25

Anglo Saxons need your help. Can you please assist us stiff-upper-lip folk to discover and value our extended families. While we have your ethnic attention, we need your help to string a meal out for several hours, during which time we might learn to talk for extended periods.

An excellent goal might be for us to stop thinking about protocol and building monuments and actually find out what is in the hearts of our friends and family, instead of just banging on about procedural matters and infrastructure creation.

While you ethnic minorities are at it, can you please help us find our talking gene so that improved relationships might discourage some of our youth suicides and prevent some of us from getting plonked into aged care facilities. It happens when us elderly Westernised folk are seen as part of the infrastructure we helped to create.

So what does making a meal last for two hours have to do with alleviating depression, longevity, crook national symbols and the exportation of convicts to Australia and the USA?

The Talking Gene connects this by way of humor, cartoons, insightful quotes, a bit of sadness and funny relationship stories along the way. You will never again feel the same way about logging your family tree, bureaucrats, ethnic minorities or Australia’s first settlers. You owe it to your talking gene to read this.

John@sanderson-media.com

A coffee table book that will provoke conversation

(This writing remains the property of John D Sanderson, Sanderson Media, Springwood Queensland, Aust, 4127)

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book.

A big thankyou to my son Peter for the cartoons he produced when aged 13. Appreciation to my beautiful wife for teaching me to make a meal last long enough to enjoy the conversation.

Contents:

1     Anglo Saxons need your help

2    Trying to break the cycle

3    Penguins can’t understand Romance

4    Reading a living page

5    Building relationships and pointless monuments

6    Conversation versus efficiency

7    Reading your family tree

8    How to dig up your tree with love

9    Swapping stories with Turks and neighbours

10  Coffee talk

11  What our genes tell us

12  Genetic research at your local flea market

13  Oracy from a Greek blacksmith

14  Using dental talk as a barometer

15  Humble dung throwing promotes communication

16  Revenge on Bob the bully

17  Why some can’t connect

18  Standing on one leg for Captain Cook

19  Upgrading social and business genes without surgery

20  How to be sure you can’t communicate

21  Can’t talk to big spending tourists

22  Bureaucrats can’t talk

23  Excusing the debacle

24  The Talking Gene and teenage suicide

25  Communication is good for your health