SINGAPORE - Born to a Thai mother, Madam Sandrian Tan grew up learning how to forage for her own food.
"My mother would bring us back to her hometown in eastern Thailand. As there weren't any ingredients in the kitchen once we arrived, she would give us a basket and tell us to collect anything from the backyard", the 46 year old ex-MasterChef Asia contestant said.
Madam Tan and her siblings learnt how to forage from her maternal grandfather. He would follow his grandchildren to the paddy fields and teach them how to identify wild edible plants. With the collection, Madam Tan's mother would make kaeng pa, or Thai jungle soup.
"In my mother's village, people actually go into the jungle or the paddy fields to collect whatever edibles they can find. We call this dish Thai jungle soup because you take vegetables that are not grown personally but from the wild".
Madam Tan's foraging skill came in handy when she was in Singapore.
"When I was growing up, we weren't rich. My mother would make this soup when we have nothing to eat. When she ran past her food budget, she would give us a plastic bag and we would go out to the construction field to pick wild kangkung. Growing up, we didn't feel that we were poor. We looked forward to having nothing because we could go out and forage - it was a fun thing to do."
In 2015, Madam Tan joined the inaugural season of MasterChef Asia. When her mother died in 2013, she realised that she did not want to live a life of regret and decided to join the cooking competition. Influenced by her mother's cooking, Madam Tan would incorporate Thai herbs and ingredients in her cooking.
Now Madam Tan spends her days taking care of her son and tending to a small 1.5 by 2.5 metre garden allotted by Punggol North Residential Committee.
She grows about 25 types of fruits, vegetables and edible flowers including loofah leaves, tropical violet, kale, and roselle leaves used in making the Thai jungle soup.
When it is time to harvest the vegetables, Madam Tan would ask her Burmese domestic helper to help her in the garden.
"When it is time to trim the garden, we will get to eat this soup. My helper enjoys this soup a lot because it reminds her of her village in Myanmar. She said: 'Eh mam, very familiar just that in Myanmar, they put turmeric and not too much chilli.' So both of us enjoy eating this soup a lot, it is like rewarding ourselves for the hard work."
