Silversea’s Tastemakers: In Bali, Maya Kerthyasa Reconnects with Family Through Cuisine

The way I see it, at the core of Silversea's newly launched Tastemakers video series lies one fundamental question: what does it really mean to experience the world with taste? With so many luxury travel companies shifting their focus towards culinary programs, can we tell what's truly authentic anymore? The word itself - authentic - seems to have lost some of its meaning: it's so abused it's become evanescent. It takes incredible resources, competence and vision to design experiences that deliver on the promise of using food as an entry point into the cultures of the world, and do so in a transformative, unforgettable way. As S.A.L.T. (Sea and Land Taste, Silversea's deep dive culinary program,) expands, so does the need to plant the roots of adventure even deeper. This means two things: reaching for the innovative and visionary, and connecting with the most sacred and traditional.

Tastemakers does precisely that, across all the continents and destinations visited by Silversea, following the most respected chefs, artisans, producers, scholars as they tell their incredible stories on camera. The series is the brainchild of Silversea with Adam Sachs, Global director of S.A.L.T. (with whom I've been designing all sorts of culinary adventures in Italy,) and Nilou Motamed. Nilou is not only Silver Dawn's godmother and a television personality, but also one of the most prepared, empathic, and quick-to-pivot interviewers I've seen in action, particularly gifted at telling stories that weave food, travel and culture in powerful (and fun!) ways. -Laura Lazzaroni

If research and innovation applied to indigenous Balinese ingredients provided the plot for episode 1 (with the brutalist-style campus hosting award winning restaurant Locavore's latest chapter: a new restaurant and R&D facilities), the sacred and traditional take center stage in the second episode of the season.

We're still in Ubud finding Nilou Motamed (co-creator of the series together with S.A.L.T.'s Global Director Adam Sachs) with Maya Kerthyasa, an Indonesian-Australian writer who is also a real-life Balinese princess. Maya's role is complex and fascinating as she serves as a bridge between the most spiritual, elemental soul of the island's cuisine and its quest for greater visibility and understanding in the international arena.

After spending time abroad, with almost a decade in Sydney where she contributed to Australian Gourmet Traveller, Kerthyasa returned to her ancestral home in Ubud: here she started to design culinary retreats and masterclasses and eventually co-authoring the recently released Paon - Real Balinese Cooking (Hardie Grant.) Recipe-making and teaching was a way to reconnect to her roots and family: Maya had grown up watching her grandmother cook, observing her every gesture, absorbing her words. Re-igniting (quite literally) the fire in the beautiful open-air kitchen of her grandmother was a full circle moment for her.

Cooking in Bali is deeply rooted in Hindu and Buddhist beliefs: the kitchen itself is a sort of symbolic altar of the elements. Fire, water and the power of creation all come together to make the family meal.

Nilou Motamed, co-creator of Silversea's Tastemakers series

It was also a profoundly spiritual one, as her grandmother's cooking incorporated some healing-through-food techniques she had learned from her late husband, Maya's grandfather.

Recipe-making and teaching are a way to reconnect to her roots and family: Maya had grown up watching her grandmother cook, observing her every gesture, absorbing her words.

"It's a transmission of soul into a dish through your hands," says Maya of traditional Balinese cooking. And indeed, many of the most evocative frames in this episode are about hands: hands lighting the fire, hands touching the food, measuring it by dollops, hands feeling the texture of a thick aromatic rub, freshly ground in a mortar, hands stirring pots, pots bubbling away, slowly, hypnotically. It's a more introspective episode than the first, and I love how almost meditative it feels. One element the two episodes have in common is showing how foundational culinary gardens are in Bali. Maya takes Nilou into her grandmother's, just steps from the kitchen, to pick the ingredients for a urab, a traditional Balinese salad, such as fresh cassava, Meringa and starfruit leaves.

Starfruit leaves are quite bitter, but as Maya explains "using coconut and spice helps balance everything out." Garlic and purple Asian shallots, turmeric, ginger, and coriander are just some of the building blocks of a proper Balinese pantry. Activating and balancing mind/body energy through food is a pillar of the local culture: each ingredient is as much medicine as it is flavor. And a finished dish is as much medicine as it is a portal to the deeper world beyond. Says Nilou "Cooking in Bali is deeply rooted in Hindu and Buddhist beliefs: the kitchen itself is a sort of symbolic altar of the elements. Fire, water and the power of creation all come together to make the family meal."

As we watch Maya and Nilou prepare the traditional urab, the table between them a triumph of different hues of green, the aroma of fresh herbs and leaves almost oozing from the screen, it's clear we're talking about a recipe but also about greater universal concepts. We see members of Maya's family present offerings to the holy altars scattered throughout the property. "Food ties into our spiritual life when we use it for offering or ceremonial purposes," reflects Maya, "but there's also an element of the daily preparation of it - all of the energy, intention and purpose - which is kind of like creating an offering in itself." An offering presented on the altar of the table, sacred in all cultures, all over the world.

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