向 Roots, Fruits, Shoots and Leaves 作者 Pam Shookman 致敬

向 Roots, Fruits, Shoots and Leaves 作者 Pam Shookman 致敬

前北京《Time out》雜誌飲食版編輯Pam Shookham 2011年復活節期間因膀胱癌離世。她確診患上癌症前撰寫《Roots, Fruits, Shoots and Leaves: A Guide to Shopping at Hong Kong’s Fresh Food Markets》一書,分享本港新鮮市場購物的指南及秘訣。

根據Pam的遺願,該書冊的版稅將撥捐香港癌症基金會,善款將用作為癌症患者提供免費支援服務,以協助患者跨越癌症旅程。我們衷心感謝Pam慷慨的支持,並祝福她的家人及朋友,身體健康。我們不會忘記Pam的愛心。

植根香港的Pam Shookham雖與癌症搏鬥,但仍然勇敢面對。Pam生前鍾情本地美食,穿梭橫街窄巷訪尋價廉物美的特色餐廳,因而撰寫《Roots, Fruits, Shoots and Leaves: A Guide to Shopping at Hong Kong’s Fresh Food Markets》一書。這本書冊以食材為主題,並以水果、蔬菜、雜貨食物分類,除附英文名稱外,亦標示繁體中文及拼音、精緻附圖、食材的準備及烹調方法。《Roots, Fruits, Shoots and Leaves: A Guide to Shopping at Hong Kong’s Fresh Food Markets》於香港各大書店、Amazon及 Blacksmith Books 發售。

Pam的丈夫 Peter Wood為妻子編寫了以下的撰文向Pam致敬,我們在此引述:

At the beginning of September 2009, Pam was diagnosed with Stage 4 bladder cancer.  That afternoon we stumbled out of the urologist’s office into the unreal bustle of Central and headed straight for the Joel Robuchon café.  There was only one possible response to cancer, Pam announced: cakes from the café and a bottle of champagne.  Twenty months later, at Easter 2011, she died. 

It is impossible for anyone else to share the experience of pain and fear that is cancer.  One thing Pam did not do was deny it.  We got home with our cakes and champagne,  I put on music so we could dance in defiance of what she had just been told.  She called her family and closest friends to tell them the news.  We cried.  

The next day it all began.  Tests in hospital.  An immediate crisis: Chemotherapy and major surgery. Tantalising hope that the chemotherapy might have miraculously vanquished the disease, followed by the loss of that hope. The grinding slog through more chemotherapy to control it, no more than that.  Her body would stabilise, then take another lurch downwards, until that moment when her oncologist said there was nothing more he could do.  

Pam had always said she wanted to die in London.  Many of our friends were there and it was easier for her family to visit from the US east coast.  Packing up took only a few days.  It was all quite orderly and straightforward, our minds concentrated on the more urgent concerns of what lay ahead.  We flew back at the end of January 2011. 

It can be all too easy to forget that there is much more to someone’s life than the cancer that kills them. Pam had two passions: food and teaching.  These two passions came together in a small book she conceived just before she was diagnosed: Roots, Fruits, Shoots and Leaves: A Guide to Shopping at Chinese Fresh Food Markets, a guide to the wet markets of Hong Kong and the produce to be found in them.

Food was central to Pam’s life.  She could do fine dining, as she proved during her time as food and restaurant critic in Beijing, but it was fresh ingredients and the people who sold them in markets that she enjoyed most and her curiosity about street food that always pulled her round the next corner in anticipation of discovering something new.  Pam believed firmly that it was possible to eat well, healthily, and inexpensively and that with just a little encouragement, everyone could be brought to understand that.

In her work in London and Beijing and in the cooking classes she ran,, Pam set out to dispel the fear many people have about cooking for themselves and experimenting with new ingredients.  Teaching was in her blood.  She had taught English in Prague, Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur and Hanoi.  Before that she had run cross-cultural courses in New York for American corporate executives about to be sent overseas.  Food was an important element in these courses.  In London she ran the test kitchen at Books for Cooks, the famous bookshop in Notting Hill, testing and correcting recipes and advising customers. In Beijing she wanted foreigners in China to feel confident about going to markets, buying fresh local produce, and cooking it for themselves.  That is precisely what her book aims to do for foreigners living in Hong Kong or visiting as tourists.

The cancer colonised her body.  Friends would tell her that she was being very brave.  “What choice do I have?” she would say when they had gone.  But she did choose.  She chose to look cancer in the eye, not to give up hope, but also not to look away.  

She retained the pleasure she took in good food right up to the end.  Back in London, weak, in terrible suffering, she asked for cheese toasties for breakfast.  I was despatched to find Vietnamese vermicelli noodles and good Italian ice cream.  A friend brought a particularly rich rice pudding that was enormously appreciated.  She could not eat much, but that did not mean she was willing to put up with bad food.  Towards the end, cubes of artisan cheese from the farmers’ markets and homemade pear or apple compote became staples of her diet.  Barely 48 hours before she died, Pam gave a ginger biscuit an appreciative thumbs up.

Not long before she passed away, Pam wrote to her publisher, Pete Spurrier at Blacksmith Books, that she wanted any royalties from the sale of Roots, Fruits, Shoots and Leaves to be donated to the Hong Kong Cancer Fund.  She went to support group meetings and was grateful for the telephone calls checking to find out how she was feeling.  While the quality of medical treatment in Hong Kong is as good as anywhere in the world, the provision of support and palliative care is not as strong as it could or should be.  Pam wanted her book to make a contribution to developing that support.

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