As students, especially international students with a spouse and small children, graduate from university and embark on new beginnings, this story may resonate and show the power of resourcefulness, community, and adaptability.
It was the mid-1960s, nearing the height of the US’s troop deployment in the Vietnam War, when Malaysian student Thambipillay Selvarajah (or Selva, as his family and friends knew him) made a choice. He had received scholarships to several university graduate programs. As his wife explains in her memoir Dining with Dragons: “we pulled out maps and spread them out on the dining table. The kids excitedly clambered all over them as Selva pointed out countries, universities, and towns. He had a special university in mind: the oldest college of agriculture in North America, in Guelph, Canada.” Selva did, indeed, make the trip with his wife Carol and two sons, while their youngest daughter stayed behind in Malaysia with Carol’s ‘Amah’ (nanny) and his wife’s parents.
In Guelph, Selva made a name for himself, becoming the university’s first graduate student senator in 1968 and co-hosting dignitaries from the Malaysian government that same year. Returning to Malaysia with his PhD in poultry science (1970), he quickly rose to a prominent position as director of the planning and evaluation division of Malaysia’s National Livestock Development Authority. When President Winegard and his wife Elizabeth visited Malaysia in 1975, Selva organized “a reception for the Winegards attended by 27 Guelph graduates and their spouses.”
The early connections between the University of Guelph and Southeast Asia are evident not only from this single example of one graduate student’s experience, but also from the fact that in 1969, the university published the Proceedings of a teach-in on Southeast Asia, with emphasis on Malaysia and Singapore, held at the University of Guelph on May 10, 1969 attended by notable speakers such as Prof. R.S. Milne, Institute of Commonwealth Studies, London, UK and Ambassador T.B. Koh, Permanent Representative of Singapore to the United Nations, among others.
But I somewhat digress. Selva unquestionably takes a key role in the story of the humble beginnings of an International Chef; however, it is now his wife Carol Selva Rajah’s time to shine. Having emigrated from an equatorial country to one that offered up cold winds and piles of snow certainly had its effect. Carol had followed her husband, and, although she was looking after their two little boys, she wanted to become more involved in the community. Dinners at friends’ houses introduced them to Canadian cooking and festive holiday meals, and after all these wonderful culinary experiences, she admits “I was hooked!”
Out for a walk one day with her friend Anne Shute (whose husband Jim was a professor at the university), the two saw a sign advertising for a teacher of French cooking in the window of a local YWCA. They went inside and “Cheekily [asked] if they were interested in a course in Malaysian cooking.”
To make a longer story short, the following week, Carol Selva Rajah started teaching her first cooking class with the help of ‘Amah’ Kim back home (who had been with her for 50 years) who sent audio tapes explaining in Cantonese “amounts and instructions” for recipes. Carol’s presentation copy to the University of Guelph’s Library of Dining with Dragons contains the following inscription: “To the University of Guelph’s Library with wonderful memories of life in Guelph and my first Asian cooking class with Anne Shute & many staff women & wives… Carol Selva Rajah [Nov] 2015.” At the end of the chapter on Canada, Selva Rajah includes a recipe for ”Anne’s Maple Butter Tarts.”
From her days in Guelph in the late 1960s—bringing Asian cooking classes to the city for the first time—she rose to culinary stardom in Malaysia in the 1980s with her 7-season TV cooking show Citarasa showcasing “Malay, Chinese, Indian and Nyonya cooking.”
From her first cookbook, The Asian Microwave Cookbook (1983), written after she emigrated to Australia, to her death at 81, she authored or co-authored 15 cookbooks with another in the works. She was invited to cook at James Beard House in New York City in April 1997, making her the first female Asian chef to do so—an incredible honour in the culinary world. On this North American tour, she made sure to visit her friends in Guelph.
This story is doubtless only one of countless similar success stories of Asian graduates and their families, so it is a great shame that as we come to celebrate Canada’s Asian Heritage Month in May, here at the University of Guelph we seem to have lost sight of their contributions to university life and to the world at large. To that end, this year—for the first time—you can check out the Library’s Collections for a selection of items in the Library’s and Archival and Special Collections holdings that will help us celebrate Asian Heritage.
References:
- Carol Selva Rajah. Dining with Dragons. Singapore: Akasaa Publishing, 2015. 273. A notable feature of this book is that the original drawings within are done by the Hollywood illustrator of the popular cartoon Scooby Doo.
- “Report from the Senate,” At Guelph. 12.26 (1968): [4]; “Winegards Return from Asian Trip,” At Guelph. 19.18 (1975): 4.
- “U. of G. Honored by Distinguished Visitors,” At Guelph. 12.36 (1968): 4.
- “Winegards Return from Asian Trip.”
- Ibid.
- Housed in Archival and Special Collections, call number RE1 UOG A0174 (boxed with RE1 UOG A0173).
- Dining with Dragons, 276.
- Ibid., 277.
- “Cooking with Sheridan: Carol SelvaRajah on Dining with Dragons.” https://www.sheridanrogers.com.au/carol-selvarajah-on-dining-with-dragons/. January 25, 2021. Accessed April 17, 2022; Durai, Abirami. “Acclaimed Cookbook Author Carol Selva Rajah dies.” The Star [Malaysia]. https://www.thestar.com.my/food/food-news/2020/06/21/acclaimed-cookbook-author-carol-selva-rajah-dies. June 21, 2020. Accessed April 17, 2022.
- Dining with Dragons, 278.
- Durai, “Acclaimed Cookbook Author ….”
- Wilson, Virginia. “Renowned Career in Cooking Started in Guelph.” Guelph Tribune. April 30, 1997: 15.