About Us
Our mission
There is little definitive-ness around Malaysian cooking. One family's version of a dish may be completely different to another family's version of the same dish. We notice that there is a lack of documentation of these different versions, and altogether a lack of celebration for the Malaysian home cook. So instead of focusing on one cuisine, we want to highlight the diversity within Malaysian cooking.
On top of that, there is a clear gap in Malaysian media focusing on food stories about the home cook. Many resources in Malaysia glorify the restaurant chef and restaurants, but we want to turn our attention to the everyday cook as well as marginalised communities who might not have a platform to talk about what and how they eat. Ultimately, we want the site to be an intersection of community, culture, and food.
Content diversity statement
Periuk aims to showcase the breadth and depth of Malaysian home cooking. This means that every cuisine and diet that is practiced, and any animal, plant, and mineral that is used in Malaysian home cooking has an equal opportunity to be represented on this website. We believe that excluding anything on the basis of 'sensitivities' would be a disservice to the rich traditions that make up our cuisines. There are tags and categories to help you navigate through this website so you can find a recipe or a story that suits your palate and preferences—we encourage you to use them.
If you see anything on our website that is potentially troubling or has slipped through our editing process, please email us at hello [at] periuk.my.
The team
Surekha Ragavan
Co-founder, stories editor
Surekha is a journalist with a decade’s worth of experience reporting on food, culture, and human interest stories among other areas. Generally fed up with the tokenising of food stories by Western media, she had a tiny seedling of an idea to start a more inclusive food platform. She still has no idea how it morphed into what you now see as Periuk.
Alia Ali
Co-founder, recipes editor
Alia has her fingers in many pies, figuratively and often literally. She has been playing with words, music, and pots and pans for her entire life, and is very pleased that she can earn a living doing those things as an adult. These days you can find her deep in a kampung by the sea, slowly but surely building the homestead of her dreams.
Zana Fauzi
Project manager & UX strategist
Zana's wide experience ranges from UX research and project management for multiple brands and companies, to social science academia studying design for communities and social justice. She's brainy, wants to break up big tech, and keeps us all as punctual and ethical as possible.
Michelle Yip
Visuals editor
Michelle of MXH Photography is our visuals lead, taking point on all the photography needs for the website and social media. Her experience ranges from stage management to teaching, and she's now focusing on photography to bring human stories to life.
Kristy Voon
Web designer
A self-proclaimed food fanatic who would gladly quit her day job to work with food, Kristy is also the designer of Periuk, where she has managed to mix food with work and create our fun logo and website. After many years in advertising agencies working for somebody else, she now runs Swhale Studio with her work and life partner.
Timothy Teoh
Web developer
Tim's work in tech for over a decade has brought many a startup and community project to life. Part of the teams that put together #PulangMengundi and last year's #KitaJagaKita, his newest side project is (successfully) figuring out our team's every website-related request.
