flower of the sea

Jeremy Fernando, Let’s drink to the hard-working people, 2022

by Jeremy Fernando

From the sea come I, compared to a flower oft been
showing myself after long summer days. Missing me
no lands bloom, much as ingredients turn not into dishes
without first a gentle caress of my hand

The single-most important element
to good cooking is salt

 ~ Samin Nosrat

Place me in the midst of she not so I become her
but that Salacia find herself in me. Preserve me
not that I become another nor ossify but that
I find myself in me

Bloom

I don’t make the soya sauce:
the microorganisms in the air do it.
I just create the right environment
for them to do so

~ Yasuo Yamamoto

Trust no one, Cicero says, unless you have eaten
much salt with them. Not as a measure of morality
but that the salt of any interesting civilisation
is mixture (Antonio Tabucchi). And coming-together be
where mischief is brewed.

Ideally much too.

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About the Author

Jeremy Fernando reads, writes, and makes things. He is the writer-at and co-creator — alongside owner and brewer, Eric Lee; chefs, Liaw Wei Loon, Vincent Khoo, Kim Fan; front-of-house story-tellers, Barnabas Tang, Vincent Kwa, Zeek Mah, and Zac Chen; farmers, horticulturalists, craft-persons, potters, painters, sound-artists, and various collaborators — of the dining experience, People Table Tales.