But as those pieces of paper fluttered out from between the pages, Chu discovered the recipes of her childhood and Singaporean culture. They now serve as the foundation of her sauce business, Madame Chu. 

Since its launch in 2017, Madame Chu sauces have been sold at co-ops and grocery stores around the Madison area. The prepared sauces — a light and flavorful ginger garlic paste, a deep and assertive Sambal Nyonya and a sweet and hot Satay Peanut Nyonya — can be used with vegetables, proteins and noodle dishes. Chu also shares recipes online featuring the three sauces.

Chu said she has realized sharing her culture through food is key to its preservation. Chu’s family is from Singapore, and part of the Peranakan culture, a blending of Chinese, Malaysian and Western influences.

>> Flavors of Home: Food captures the culture, history of local producers

“There is a gap in knowledge,” Chu said. “Cookbooks, YouTube, the internet really don’t give you the true recipes. The true way of preserving food — it’s hands-on experience, it’s watching us do it and then doing it.”

While Chu is sharing the food of her ancestors with the people of Madison, she understands that not everyone will want to do the same.

“I just hope that people will contribute to a knowledge base so that we can all preserve our cultures,” Chu said. “Not just my culture, but various cultures, people from Ukraine, people from Russia, people from Singapore, Malaysia, we all could share our family recipes.”

Chu, 57, came to the U.S. from Singapore in 1995. She settled in Sun Prairie and graduated from UW-Madison with a doctorate in industrial engineering and, later, a nursing degree. Chu married Ben Johnson in 2003, who helps run Madame Chu.

Thinking back to her childhood, Chu said her mom didn’t cook often but had a lot of cookbooks. 

“My mom is the kind that will buy loads of cookbooks, but she will not cook a single item,” she joked. “I think we all identify with that.”

Chu always enjoyed cooking. She started out by making ramen noodles and fried rice to feed herself and her two siblings.

But it was Chu’s maternal grandmother who truly inspired her love for food. She often spent time with her grandmother as she cooked, learning the spices and preparation of her favorite dishes. 

The recipe for the ginger garlic paste comes from her paternal grandmother, who always kept her recipes secret. By standing an acceptable distance away from the kitchen, Chu was able to learn the intricacies of her grandmother’s cooking over time.

At first, Chu and Johnson only used the recipes they discovered between the cookbook pages to prepare food for themselves, close family and friends.

But after the sauces got great reviews, they started playing with the idea of starting a business. They got a food license and became members of FEED Kitchens, a Madison commercial kitchen space available for rent.

Chu knew they were onto something big when a group of international students in Madison tried some of the sauces.

“They would taste the product and say, ‘Oh my gosh, it tastes really good. It tastes like home,’” she said. “It affirms that the product is not something that we just looked at in cookbooks: It truly is from my country.”

Madame Chu is run completely by Chu and her husband. They measure out all the ingredients individually for each batch of sauce and mix the product by hand. The sauces are considered “slow foods” since they take several hours to prepare.

The kitchen is calm one recent Sunday afternoon while they prepare the sauces. The fragrant smells of garlic and ginger fill the space. As people occasionally walk through the kitchen, Chu is sure to greet each passerby, often asking them to sample a sauce as it cooks.

Johnson has been enlisted as the “stirrer” — an important job for the ginger garlic recipe that requires the mixture to move as it heats. He stirs the sauce almost constantly while it simmers in a large vat, pointing out the arm workout he gets in the process.

The pair works mostly quietly though, tasting the sauce together and conferring on whether they need to add more of a certain ingredient. While they follow the recipes passed down from Chu’s grandmothers, they’ll adjust the flavor slightly as needed.

They momentarily disagree about how to tailor the ginger garlic recipe but ultimately land on adding both brown sugar and vinegar.

The pH of the mixture is tested several times during the cooking process. Since the sauces don’t have any preservatives or stabilizing ingredients, keeping the pH level around 4.5 makes sure bacteria won’t affect the product, Chu said.

Sustainability is another focus of the Madame Chu brand. She intentionally makes smaller batches of the product to avoid food waste and limit water use. 

“When I talk about sustainability and being a responsible food manufacturer, what I mean is that we don’t make (more than) the amount that is needed by the consumers, so much so that the product expires,” Chu said.

Despite the success, Madame Chu’s operations are changing. After dedicating most of her time to the business for the past several years, Chu is returning to her career as a nurse. She said she sees a great need for more nursing staff and wants to do her part.

Johnson also works a full-time job as a software developer, so preparing recipes for Madame Chu is limited to the weekends. Chu said this adjustment means they’ll spend less time operating pop-up food stands at events, and focus more on selling at grocery stores and co-ops.

Chu and Johnson are also beginning to think about retirement as they enter their late 50s. They may see whether their son, Keagan, is interested in carrying on the business. They’re open to other options, too.

“We hope that eventually someone will come and say, ‘Hey, we want to learn your culture, we want to learn your food, we want to learn how to make your product,’” Chu said. “At that stage, we’ll pass it on because it is not something that I want to take to my grave. We want to share it — that’s the key.”