A Taste of Asia: Hetty McKinnon’s Cookbook Celebrates Asian Cuisine

For bestselling cookbook author Hetty McKinnon, food helped form a bridge between Australia and Asia—a bridge that connected her to her cultural identity. Her parents, who immigrated to Sydney from Guangdong province in southern China, brought the flavorful Chinese kitchen with them, and the aromas, sights, and sounds of Chinese cuisine manifested in every meal.

“I didn’t understand much about my Chinese roots as my parents didn’t really talk about their lives before they arrived in Australia,” relayed McKinnon in an interview with Artful Living. “But food was always my gateway to my Chinese heritage; it was a tangible way for me to understand who my parents are and where they came from.”

McKinnon cookbook To Asia, With Love—a sumptuous collection of creative vegetarian recipes featuring relatively simple pan-Asian dishes—offered a way for McKinnon to recreate her childhood memories through traditional dishes prepared in non-traditional ways.

“Even from the youngest age, whether I was watching my mom cook, helping her fold dumplings or having dim sum every Sunday in Sydney’s Chinatown, food gave me moments to really recognize my Asian-ness,” explained the author. “But I really didn’t think deeply about my cultural identity until I started to cook myself.”

McKinnon stressed that cooking allowed her to really think about the role that food plays in connection—between people, between generations, between cultures—and make sense of not only her Chinese identity but also her Australian one.

Featuring savory flavors created from simple, fresh ingredients, her recipes are firmly rooted in the place where east meets west and where tradition charts the journey to the modern kitchen—with ingredients carefully picked so that they’re readily available in any supermarket.

Currently based in Brooklyn, McKinnon’s recipes range from the traditional to her uniquely modern interpretations, such as buttery miso vegemite noodles, stir-fried salt and vinegar potatoes. Being a vegetarian for over twenty years now, she puts an emphasis on seasonal vegetables when creating her irresistible Asian flavors. McKinnon stresses that her plant-based recipes are truly egalitarian, for every person who enjoys a flavor-packed, vegetable-heavy dish (no labels required).

“Food led me back to my cultural heritage and instilled in me a great sense of pride in being who I am,” she notes. “To Asia, With Love is a celebration of this homecoming; there’s a huge chunk of my heart in this book.”