Passion for Mauritian Cuisine
When
someone cooks with an incredible passion like an artist, to combine the meats, sea
foods, vegetables, herbs, spices, oils and other ingredients, into a palette that
delights the senses and transports your tastebuds into a culinary adventure,
you have to appreciate the skills and love that contributed to your delight
at the dining table.
I am one of the lucky ones to have not only
met such persons, but also to have had such persons in my life. In my youth, I
can still see my grandmother slave away in the outdoor kitchen over a charcoal
fire. She made the most wonderful dishes from very simple ingredients and kept
everybody happy and well fed. My father was also a good cook who prepared flavoursome
dishes from very little. I can also remember my mother preparing prawn
rougaille on rice for my breakfast before I left for work.
When I married the love of my life Madeleine Philippe,
who unfortunately left us in February 2011, I had absolutely no idea of
cooking. I could not even cook an egg. Mind you, I enjoyed good foods then and
would gravitate towards good Mauritian cuisine. Madeleine’s cooking was out of
this world. She had a passion for Mauritian cuisine and acquired much from the
family love of cooking, friends who would share techniques and skills, chefs
from such establishments like Rio Restaurant in Curepipe. Madeleine had no
hesitation to walk into the restaurant’s kitchen and discuss techniques with
the chef. Our dining table always had room for last minute guests and Madeleine
would turn dinner for four into dinner for eight in no time at all.
In 1982,
Madeleine and I were in Mildura and friends were always asking for copies of
recipes from Madeleine’s cooking. The idea of writing a book on Mauritian
Cuisine was born. We wrote together our first recipe. It was the recipe for the
famous Mauritian “Rougaille Saucisses”. That is, sausages cooked in a spicy
tomato sauce. However, the book was never published, we had just migrated to
Australia and were starting life anew in our new country of adoption. Financial
limitations stopped us from proceeding further.
Nevertheless,
I took a close interest in Mauritian Cuisine and in 1994, Madeleine and I
established the first web site promoting Mauritius, with recipes forming an
integral component of the “Mauritius Australia Connection” web portal. Today,
our web site receives in excess of 4000 page visits daily. The “Recipes from
Mauritius” by Madeleine Philippe web site is now the most popular and Google
No. 1 site on Mauritian cuisine.
The
combination of Madeleine’s expertise on Mauritian cuisine and my engineering
approach was the perfect arrangement. We together developed a very user
friendly format that presented lovers of Mauritian cuisine with recipes that
are easy to prepare with very good results. Unfortunately, Madeleine left us in
February 2011 after battling breast and ovarian cancers for five years. I
promised myself that a book promoting her passion for Mauritian cuisine will be
written, to lodge into history her contribution towards this wonderful cuisine
of ours.
An
incredible thing happened to me after Madeleine’s passing. It was like her
passion and love of Mauritian cuisine had been passed on to me. Our long term
involvement in working out the best recipes for the various Mauritian dishes,
led to both of us acting like one entity. Today, it’s like Madeleine is still
alive in me and guiding me in the preparation of the many Mauritian dishes that
we enjoyed eating and preparing together. The truth is that she is very much
present in me. Part of me died when she left us, but much of her is still very much
alive in me. She passed on to me the responsibility to carry on the promotion
of Mauritian cuisine. The “Recipes from Mauritius” web site is still very much active
with thousands of persons worldwide seeing Madeleine daily through her recipes.
She is still very much present among us. New recipes are added regularly, with
Madeleine’s special touch for flavour and nourishment. I used the word
nourishment, as I am more than convinced that Madeleine’s healthy cooking
contributed to her keeping cancer at bay until very much later in life.
Madeleine’s mum, aunties and cousin were all victims of either breast or
ovarian cancer in their mid 40’s or 50’s.
