One of the first words ever spoke was 'dong gu' – Cantonese for shiitake mushrooms. It's fitting that mushrooms were a part of the author's vocabulary so early on, since they play a starring role in her newest work, , as well as her other popular vegetarian cookbooks, , Neighbourhood, Family and . The Sydney-born writer recalls a childhood scented with "a strong, distinct perfume" of dried shiitakes being rehydrated. "My mother would set a bowl of water out most mornings and soak a few mushrooms for the day's meals," she says. "She would cut off the stems and freeze them, adding them to , just for me because she knew the chewy texture was my favourite."
As she grew older, she deepened her vocabulary (adding 'mor gu' for fresh button mushrooms) and her fascination with the ingredient – its flexibility, textures and child-charming chewiness – evolved. "In Tenderheart, the mushroom chapter has the most recipes, and it is the chapter I found the easiest to write, the chapter for which I had the longest list of ideas," the author says. "I actually grew a lot of the mushrooms that I photographed in Tenderheart." The lion's mane and blue oyster mushrooms that unfurl across pages in her book thrived in her home – which is apt since much of Tenderheart is tied to her household.
While her mother (known variously as Lee Yuk Ling, Yuk Ling Lui, and Lindy) has appeared throughout the author's books, Tenderheart shows us more of her father (Wai Keung Lui, aka Ken). We met him briefly in To Asia, With Love, via a banana and black sesame loaf recipe inspired by her childhood home being deluged with fruit, because her father worked at Sydney's Flemington Markets. It's a flashback she draws on in much more detail in Tenderheart. Lui McKinnon dips into those crates and boxes of produce that filled those old rooms, all lugged home and generously shared by her father. These memories were unfairly cut short, though, because her father tragically passed away on New Year's Eve in 1989, when the author was only 15.
"Having lost my father at a young age, perhaps I have not always appreciated the ways he impacted the person I am today. His legacy is not as present in my everyday life. But in vegetables, and in my approach to food, I have found pieces of him again. When I cook and eat vegetables, I feel a connection that is strong and electric, and for me, perhaps this is a tangible way I can keep him and his legacy alive."
The generous nature of her recipes – always packed with appetite-filling ingredients – echoes the way her father was so unsparing with his fruit market haul. Crates of mangoes were dispatched to elderly Earl, who lived two doors down, while their doctor received much more than an apple a day (plus some oranges, too). Family and friends were met with boxes of cherries, peaches and plums in summer. "My older sister Letty recalls that, as a small child, she walked around the neighbourhood distributing fruit baskets to the neighbours," Lui McKinnon writes in Tenderheart.
Hetty Lui McKinnon with her dad. Source: Supplied
This nostalgia-tinged abundance in the book is contrasted with the reality of creating the cookbook during the COVID-19 lockdown, which required the author to make the most of the few ingredients she could access in Brooklyn, New York, where she currently lives with her husband and three children.
"It was this scarcity that fuelled a lot of the recipes in this book. It was during lockdown that I had to learn a different way to cook, relying on everyday vegetables that I could easily get at the supermarket, and in many cases, make these vegetables go far, stretching into as many meals as possible," she says. "Lockdown forced us to be more creative with food, we had licence to break the rules. So, there are recipes like the 'everything bread soup' which breaks all the rules using both tortellini AND stale bread. There are also a lot of recipes where leftovers are used, like the 'inspired by chana saag' fried rice, taro curry puffs and panang curry pizza. Lockdown made us the champions of using up leftovers creatively."
Most recipes in the book are pantry-friendly numbers that she "cooked regularly and enthusiastically during lockdown". This isolating period led to many viewings (and new dough-rolling and shaping tricks as a result), and she nailed , too. "I finally had the time to reflect on the recipe, to talk to my mum and experiment, and arrive at a recipe that I felt like I could share with others," the author says.
Soy-butter bok choy pasta. Source: Tenderheart by Hetty McKinnon
The book reflects her mother's interest in maintaining Chinese traditions (from Lunar New Year prosperity dishes to Northern Chinese 'chive boxes'), while also echoing her father's fascination with Western food (Peruvian , Greek gemista and other border-crossing flavours all inspire Lui McKinnon's recipes).
"I think having our feet in several dominant cultures is quite normal for third-culture kids. We have to survive between many worlds and learn to find our own identities amidst the push and pull. Obviously, Chinese food is my soul, it is the baseline of everything I understand about ingredients, flavour, and texture. But being Chinese is not the only thing I am," she says. "I am also Australian and lived amongst the flavours of our multicultural country. I am also an immigrant, a transplant in America who is finding my feet amongst the vastness of cuisine in this country. I am also globally curious, so I'm always hungry to learn other people's stories and find connections with them through food."
We have to survive between many worlds and learn to find our own identities amidst the push and pull.
It leads to her adding personal riffs to classic dishes in the book: turning into a sweet potato salad and switching turnips in place of potato in tortilla Española or substituting pasta in lasagne with "layers of roasted, sweet, earthy butternut" (which she counts as more of a flavour win than conventional pasta sheets).
TENDERHEART RECIPE
Lazy spiced butternut tiramisu
She also fills the pages of Tenderheart with worldwide culinary memories, like recollections of Brussels sprouts sold on the stalk at Portobello Road Market, located underneath her top-floor flat in London, or the food court omelette that reveals how she met her husband Ross when they were part-time ushers at the Capitol Theatre in Sydney's Chinatown, located opposite where her father once lived.
Tenderheart also tours the world of vegetables via food history and colourful quotes, too. You learn wild fennel is named after the where marathons originated and discover Welsh writer Ken Follett’s unshakeable faith in one particular vegetable. "Pray for miracles, but plant cabbages," he says. "In good times and bad, cabbage will save us."
The famous food court omelette. Source: Tenderheart by Hetty Lui McKinnon
In good times and bad, cabbage will save us.
"I loved learning about all the ways vegetables have changed our lives and society in history," Lui McKinnon says. "Like how the Romans ate lots of raw broccoli before banquets because they believed that broccoli could help the body absorb large quantities of alcohol; how the original carrot crops were most likely purple; that in Japanese culture, to dream of eggplant as our first dream of the new year symbolises soaring to great heights, and how Queen Marie Antoinette wore potato flowers in her hair to popularise the scorned potato to French society, which was lucky because potatoes were used to help fight starvation in northern France in 1785."
TRY THIS RECIPE
Mum’s velvet potatoes
The book's time-tripping detours through past centuries are a departure from the author's previous work. And when you look at Tenderheart, you'll notice it's the first cookbook where she's credited as Hetty Lui McKinnon (instead of Hetty McKinnon). So what led to this change?
"The short answer to this is self-acceptance," the writer says. "The long answer: Hetty Lui McKinnon is my full (married) name. And over the years, the Lui disappeared from daily use. In the past few years, I have undergone...a personal reckoning, recognising that there were parts of my identity which I muted in order to feel more accepted in the Western world. I have reconnected with my heritage and found pride in my family story. I have found joy and love in my family's immigrant story. I think you can see this catharsis happening in my books and in my work in [my food journal] and food writing in general. Using my full name, or reinstating Lui, is part of this journey."
I have reconnected with my heritage and found pride in my family story.
And just as her father's surname is at the forefront of the book, his presence endures through the memories and old pictures in Tenderheart – as well as the way Lui McKinnon focuses her lens now.
"My dad was always taking photos, and after he died, I was the one that ended up with his camera. Nowadays, I never stop taking photos. I am also a collector and I realised that this is a trait we shared," she says. Just as she's spent her career sharing stories of food, her father kept matchboxes from the restaurants he visited – something the author discovered on returning to Sydney for a recent visit.
And then there's that lifelong connection to fresh-grown produce.
"Even though I am not working at the markets hawking bananas or bringing home trays of veggies every day, I find this deep, visceral joy in vegetables and this is something I hold onto very tightly, because I know this is a legacy of the world my father created for us before his passing. For this, I am so grateful."
Hetty portrait by Shirley Cai. All other images courtesy of Tenderheart and Hetty Lui McKinnon.
Tenderheart by Hetty Lui McKinnon (Plum, $59.99) is out now.
