You know what they say about distance making the heart grow fonder – for the founders of Wundercook, Taiwanese sisters Susan and Elle, the pandemic made them long even more for the connection to childhood comfort foods associated with their parents’ home town in Taipei.
“When travel was open prior to the pandemic, lockdowns and restrictions – it was still a long, tiring and expensive journey back to Taiwan, so naturally you’ll find that we have built our own little Taiwanese community in South Africa, who love cooking and bringing our culture's flavours to life here”.
South Africa’s Taiwanese diaspora community is the 18th largest immigrant community living outside Taiwan, and when the country entered its first lockdown in March 2020, the seeds of Wundercook were born.
“We couldn’t travel back to Taiwan. We couldn’t see our family. We couldn’t walk the streets and eat the foods our parents grew up eating, so we started making it ourselves more often. We reached out to other Taiwanese South Africans who made dishes that we couldn’t replicate. We started researching the histories and stories of the dishes we took for granted when we got to eat them once a year during our pilgrimage back to Taiwan.” Their journey back to the food they had grown up with also took them further afield, across Asia.
The name Wundercook combines that feeling for travel, wunderlust, and a passion for food. The online store started with the aim of allowing South Africans easy access to ingredients and recipes to recreate dishes from Taiwan and South East Asia at home.
An online Asian grocery store, on the site you can order myriad must-have ingredients for this continental cuisine, from Mirin to essential Kewpie mayonnaise plus frozen deli goods (such as dumplings and baos) and all-in-one meal kits. What we love about Wundercook is that they provide convenience foods that don't cut corners on quality. Wholesome, nutritious and homemade are the benchmarks.
On the site you can order by country cuisine – including South Korea, Vietnam, Thailand and Japan – stock up on cookware like the essential bamboo steamer, buy must-have condiments and spices plus of course those brilliant meal kits.
We ordered two kits – the Japanese Shoyu Chicken Ramen Meal Kit and the Taiwanese Chicken Gua Bao Meal Kit, and made them on two different occasions. The kits each provided a generous meal for three with leftovers. As soon as you place your order you receive a recipe card with all the instructions. Items are delivered individually wrapped and beautifully packaged with clear guidelines for storage if you are not going to use them that day.
We also love how Wundercook has created a network of small and specialist suppliers, supporting local Asian South African businesses and small immigrant businesses who make delicious food.
Delivery is nationwide – so this is also a great gift option. For a treat we recommend ordering a few boxes of Pepero. Fantastic sweet snacks – these little chocolate covered breadsticks from South Korea are traditionally given to your office crush, or anyone else you fancy, and are utterly addictive.
* We received a voucher from Wundercook to test this out. The choice was so good on the site we ended up adding our own budget to it.
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