Malay Indian woman bags world cookbook award

London, Apr.15 : A 70-year-old Malay Indian cookbook writer, Mohana Gill, has won The Gourmand World Cookbook Award 2007 for her book on vegetarian cooking.

According to the New Strait Times, Mohana's award-winning book, Vegemania, was written in 2006 and published by MPH. This is the second year running that she has won an award for her cookbooks.

Last year, she bagged the Special Jury Award 2006 for Fruitastic, her book on fruits at the Gourmand Cookbook Awards held in Beijing.

"I started experimenting with vegetarian cooking when my son turned vegetarian. He was 24 at that time," she said.

Mohana, who was born in Myanmar, came to Malaysia to teach economics at the University of Malaya after her studies in Canada in 1965. She became a Malaysian after marrying a local doctor there.

"My vegetarian cooking is not just Indian cooking. It covers vegetarian cuisine from Japan, Mexico, China, Malaysia and many more," she said after receiving her award from Edouard Cointreau, who founded the World Cookbook Awards in 1995 and renamed it the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards in 2001.

This year's event was held in conjunction with the London Book Fair.

She said with 14 fruit trees, a vegetable plot, and a husband who was an avid gardener, it was easy for her to experiment with vegetarian recipes.

With the growing concern over obesity, Mohana advised mothers to get educated on healthy eating so that they could ensure that their children eat healthy food instead of fast food.

Mohana's next book will be on healthy eating for children.

Malaysia hosted the award in 2006 when local celebrity chef Chef Wan won the award.

ANI