Emma and the Eurasian Potluck

Emma is writing in her diary on 25 December 1963, after her family’s yearly midnight Christmas party. She recounts how she and her sisters went to Tekka Market with their mother to buy ingredients for Eurasian pie, how they made pineapple tarts on the charcoal oven, and she mentions the other dishes at the party such as prawn bostada and devil curry.

Young readers will be amused by the lively tone of the diary – written just as a little girl might – and enthralled by the glimpse into the past and seeing how food was cooked before the days of widespread electricity.