Under a patriarchal system, the women were in charge of the home. They cooked in a style they had learned from their Malay and Indonesian mothers: lots of stews and curries cooked in a plethora of local herbs and aromatics – lemongrass, blue ginger, pandan leaves, to name a few – which helped to preserve the food in a tropical climate without refrigeration, said Lee Geok Boi, author of In A Straits-Born Kitchen and other cookbooks.