Ayam Buah Keluak and the Art of Writing: A memoir on living creatively
Josephine Chia
Ethos Books: 2025
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The Missing Anthology: Stories from Singapore’s Sex Workers
Edited by Vanessa Ho, Raksha Mahtani and nor
Faction Press: 2025
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I’ve long been intrigued by the buah keluak nut, a star ingredient of Peranakan cuisine in Singapore and Malaysia. Unless properly treated—a laborious process of soaking, washing, brushing—this nut is poisonous. In an era where one can even get garlic pre-peeled, it’s easy for home cooks to procure nuts that have already been rid of the cyanide in their grooves. But who, I’ve always wondered, was the first to figure out how to make it safe to eat? Was it an accidental discovery or the result of trial-and-error (and at what cost)?

Josephine Chia doesn’t answer this question in Ayam Buah Keluak and the Art of Writing: A memoir on living creatively (nor was she prepared for this to be the question I blurted out, right after “hello”, upon our first meeting), but she does encourage us to consider buah keluak in another way. She quotes her mother’s response to the dangers of the lurking cyanide: “In itself, the poison is neither good or bad, it becomes bad only when we allow ourselves to be poisoned.”

Chia has lived her life by this philosophy, refusing to be “poisoned” by all the struggles and trauma she’s experienced; from poverty in childhood to divorce and a loving marriage turned toxic by alcoholism and abuse. While cooking has been a way for her to express her creativity and claim her identity as a proud Peranakan woman for a long time, Chia came to writing later in life. Between these two outlets (and yoga), she’s managed to purge the poison that might otherwise have wrecked the colourful, flavourful textures of her life.

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