From: Rosa - 17
Date: 7/28/00
Time: 2:48:19 AM
Of Food and Wine
Ah Koong (who almost never became Ah Koong) was found slumped in the cellar beside large vats in the wine shop that belonged to his father in Moh Dou Sek (Place of the Whetting Stone) in Ga Ying Jau, a Hakka region in Gwong Dung Saang (Province of Canton).The crime-fiction-led mind of the young girl listening to the tale wondered, had the person who happened upon the scene been a little late and the lad had fallen into a vat instead, would the magistrate have decided if it was death by drowning in a red sea of wine or death by disobedient supping of the heady wine. And which would have been a less difficult death?
Several years later saw Ah Mah sitting on her bed (which by easy deduction in the mind of the young girl meant that Ah Koong survived and did become Ah Koong, thereby dispensing the magistrate of his tricky task) in the house where the families of her two sons were accommodated, in Kampong Pandan, Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaya, the promising land of Nanyang which had beckoned to them and where they had arrived, crossing the unknown sea on a junk to an unknown yet hopeful future. Sitting on that bed Ah Mah cast her memory back to the golden summer days in faraway Hunan where lychees hung lusciously dripping sweetness as she sailed in a boat on a lake. There were lychees now, even in tropical Kuala Lumpur, to be had at some price, but which did not deter Ah Mah, so much did she want that imagined mouth-watering sweetness once again. Donning her black silk jacket she wandered out and returned with the precious bunches, kindly sharing them with the young girl and the others of her grandchildren. Every single pearly white ball encasing a shiny black kernel was as sweet as Ah Mah had dreamed and the children now understood the yearning for it.
Ah Mah knew how to materialise other wonderful delicacies almost unheard of in a land which, for all its year-long lushness, does not produce half the variety of exotic dishes that are commonplace in China, where each of the four seasons in turn brings forth its own richness in food. So Ah Mah lamented. Ah Mah came home from one of the shops in Chinatown with dried silkworms, which under her instructions the servant turned into a delicious dish of crisp silkworms bits complemented by the soft texture of diced pork. After another trip she produced from her huge pockets the wonderfully weird titbit of lung-saat (‘dragon’s lice’), dried water beetles whose head and legs were discarded and the rest then chewed, releasing a flavoursome salty taste in the month.The grandchildren loved it.This was a rare delicacy and when a gift of it was brought by visitors from Hong Kong or when Ah Mah had again recklessly splashed out, a jar of it was temptingly displayed on the table in her room. The western trained doctor, so much to be pitied for his ignorance of exotic titbits, shook his head at the sight of it and was reported to have opined that it was not surprising that he had to come out so often on night calls to Ah Mah if she had the habit of eating such strange insects.
And he had to be given due marks for his doctorly observation. Ah Mah once fell seriously ill, to the point when the good priest as well as the good doctor again had to be called out. The cause of illness was her over-eating of the strange dish of half-hatched chickens (in their shells) double-steamed in the best Chinese wine. Her prolonged stay in hospital and her life-hanging-by-a-thread caused Ah Koong to make his famous statement that the likelihood of a salt fish swimming was greater than her chance of surviving her greedy bout. A seemingly scientific statement which Ah Mah was determined to prove untrue. Household consternation dissipated when she pulled through, yet once more. Household learnt wisdom did not put much faith in her earnest declaration as she lay gasping that never again would she concoct strange culinary delights nor would she overeat of anything, ever again. Some weeks later found Ah Mah up and about for the next food that she fancied or concocting her own recipies, yet once more. Her own dish of diced century egg stir-fried with minced pork had been handed down unfeudalistically to the males and females in the family alike, but her spreading sweet jam mixed with salty min-see on slices of bread remained a specialty between her and her grandchildren well trained to be adventurous, having failed to make its way into the family recipe book.
Through Ah Mah’s introduction, the two families, Malayan-born, ate of the seasonal delights, China-imported – fresh young bamboo shoots (which the uneducated and undeserving nostrils of the grandchildren found to have the whiff of urine), round little yams and buffalo-horn-shaped ling-kok (a part of the lotus plant) at the Moon Festival, the winter chee-gu (crisp, white rounds of a vegetable like water chestnut in appearance) during the Chinese New Year season. Faat-choi a delicacy in those days were shunned by the grandchildren who were convinced that it was the hair of dead Sikh men. Neither did they thank Ah Mah when they were given the tedious task of disembowelling the gingko nuts of their hidden bitter green bit for Ah Mah’s afternoon snack of baak-gwo and fu-juk tong-seui.
But Ah Mah was not beyond being seduced by local food. The durian is the king of the local fruit and Ah Mah was one of the queens of eating it. Every season saw her surfeiting on it. Every season saw her ill from surfeiting on it, all pledges of moderation purposefully forgotten. Strangely, Ah Koong who disliked durian was an expert in choosing the most creamily tasty, the most heavenly pungent and the least worm-infested of durians. Stranger still that it was the illness-inducing overeating of durians (by Ah Mah not Ah Koong) that was a frequent cause of their squabbles yet he would choose the best for her.Yu-Sang (an exqusite dish of raw fish salad eaten only during Chinese New Year) was one of the few claims of local Chinese cuisine to be as inventive as the excellent cusines from China and Hong Kong. Ah Mah took to it as the yu to water and, throwing her money and her caution to the wind, indulged herself of a full portion every day that the dish was on the festival menu. Once again her invention for things foody saw the possibility in a local fruit and she was giving instructions to have the skin of the pomelo sun-dried and then braised with thick slices of belly pork. Ah Mah adventurous spirit with regard to food knew no national bounds. She developed a liking for canned Kraft cheese (the one cheese available in the days before household fridges) and was seen in M. S. Ally asking the man for ‘kissee’. She came home laughing at her inapt attempt at a foreign word, hugging the foreign cheese.
Certainly no Chang ever sniffs at a love of food as belonging to the non-high-minded among life’s pursuits. They were brought up on food in more than the sense of eating to grow up. Running a simple roadside foodstall was one of the early means of earning a living that Ah Koong and Ah Mah devised when they set up in Kuala Lumpur. Ah Koong’s unlearned skill at cooking must have been reliably good enough for Ah Mah to gamble on approaching the mother superior of the convent school to let them operate the tuckshop. It became a venture so successful as to earn them the tender for the nearby boys’ school of St John’s Institution. Another concocted dish, lou-yau-yu, became their piece de resistance – pieces of cuttlefish cooked al dente in a viscous red sauce, slightly hot, poured over plainly fried mai-fun. The schoolchildren queued for this favourite and Ah Mah would play favouritism by singling out the pretty girls to jump the queue and pile their dishes of mai-fun with a large piece of yau-yu. Which, in the mind of the young girl listening to her story, showed that Ah Mah was more than a connoisseur of food alone. Her sensual delights included the appreciation of good looks. Except that she had her disappointments. Operating the two tuckshops meant that she had to go to the market each day. Once, returning with a heavily laden basket, she saw the back of a beautiful woman and hastened her steps to catch a glimpse of her face. Having overtaken her, she turned back to see the ugliest features she had ever seen. Convent-bred, the listening girl wondered what the moral of the story was. Did Ah Mah’s excess of feasting her eyes bring that disappointment?
Luckily Ah Koong had survived his youthful, foolish encounter with the demon alcohol and lived not only to tell the tale but also to bring several robust Hakka dishes to the Chang culinary heritage. His ja-yuk and his yong-hou-sih still grace every Chang festive board with the lou-ngau-yuk (dried braised lumps of beef covered in a thick black peppery sauce, thinly sliced) as a tasty side-dish to go with beer and wines. The lou-yau-yu of course. And when the mood took him, Ah Koong would saunter to the market with a bucket and return with slabs of white dau-fu for making his special Hakka yong-dau-fu with just a hint of salt fish.
Food defines a culture, so too does food from other sources blended together enrich a culture. The blending of regional cuisines certainly enriched the Chang palate with other tastes. Side by side, not competing with Ah Koong’s Hakka dishes, but temptingly good in their own right were Mamma’s Fuk-Jau (Hockchiew) dishes on all festive occasions. Since Ah Koong did not fall into the wine vats he did not discover the layer of dregs that line their bottom. It was left to Mamma to introduce the Fuk-Jau red hung-jou paste. A dish of succulent chicken pieces, cooked till the red paste covered them in a thick consistency, made its regular proud appearance on the table as often as the Hakka dishes did. Or the hung-jou cooked as a soup, the chicken pieces flavoured with ginger. Like the red-dyed eggs that announced a baby’s arrival at the age of one month, the red soup made an announcement much less welcome. That is, less welcome by the growing girl and in their own time by her sisters and cousins. She had been picked out as the chief consumer of that flavour-full soup specially laced with wine for the occasion. A pity that her enjoyment was spoiled by the embarrassment that her very being so favoured told all that her first menstrual period had come and she needed extra nourishment. Just as well that the other famed Fuk-Jau dish could be enjoyed without any unwanted announcement attached. The wan-tan pastry made from finely ground meat, crisp and paperly in appearance until softened by flicking water over it and then used as wrapping for minced pork and prawn.
Other additions to the metaphorical melting pot. Also sailing across the south seas to Nanyang but in much greater comfort were Mamma’s family. Less familiar were the circumstances of these forebears but much enjoyed were the local culinary flavours that resulted from their landing among the babas and nyonyas of Penang. Mamma’s youngest sister became the aunt who made the best nyonya kuihs, a skill she developed in the days of seclusion, hiding in Damansara from the Japanese during their occupation of the country. An array of large round trays set with kuihs shuddering in all their tempting glory, to be cut into square mouthfuls. Green with a top layer of coconut-milk white, multi-layers of alternating pink and white to be lovingly peeled off, shapes wrapped in leaves. Daai-Kau-Fu, son of the house, a man, hence it was deemed did not need the cooking skills of women, had no homemade kuihs to offer but his generous invitation to helpings, from the large double baskets of the Indian kuih-vendor he had called into the house, more than made up for his deficiency. Mamma rewarded with treats of kuihs for helping with cleaning the house. Brought up as discerning eaters of kuihs made by a skilful aunt and bought from the best Indian kuih-vendor by an indulgent uncle, the children could tell the difference in taste and texture but were nonetheless thankful for Mamma’s bought kuihs.
Other tasty goodies from the aunt envied for her skills revolved round Chinese festivals. The Dragon Boat Festival meant pyramid-shaped bundles of steamed glutinous rice wrapped in bamboo leaves. The sweet variety dipped in sugar and the ones with savoury fillings. Luk Yi’s savoury jungs were of the nonya kind, different from the larger Cantonese jungs bought by Ah Mah. Mooncakes at the Moon Festival were not made but bought but only from the best shop in town and came with different fillings, the most favoured were the lotus paste with double egg yolks. For the Festival of the Winter Solstice Luk Yi made tong-yun, little glutinous rice balls, tiny red ones and larger white ones, swimming in a syrup. Chinese New Year a time of too much food and cookies. New Year was approaching when Popo sent from her shop a huge box of cakes, each prettily iced sitting in its own cup. Bai-nin visits were marvellous opportunities to eat the crisp yet melting wafers of love-letters and white animals-shaped cookies that stuck delightfully to the mouth. Even at the home of the great aunt who made the best love-letters in the world the children were mindful of their manners, discreetly helping themselves (upon invitation of course) and nibbled demurely at the wafers. Mamma tried making them one year but could not reach the same perfection.
The culinary skills of the aunts were put to good use when Popo’s and Doih-Ma’s birthdays were celebrated. Mamma, the dutiful daughter brought up to know the traditional offerings, arrived with her family bearing a dish of longevity noodles sitting on which were two hard-boiled eggs stained with ‘sou’ in red, intricately cut from red paper the character was then transferred on the eggs. Lunch was always the birthday lum-min, fat yellow strands of long noodles immersed in a rich soup and topped with prawns, thin pork slices and slivers of omelette dyed red for good luck. The children had their evening meal early, watched over by the chatting adults. The pickety-finicky girl mindful of her manners furtively threw her fat pieces of pork under the table. When the family dog was not there to gratefully pick up the pieces she did her best by swallowing them whole, feeling the slimy globs slithering down her throat.
Ah Koong who had survived his collapse by the wine vats lived to see many birthdays as did Ah Mah who in defiance of all predictions of death by surfeit lived to have many birthdays celebrated. The celebrations were aptly Chinese banquets for relatives and friends held either in restaurants or the cooks were invited home, bringing their woks and supplies and complete with tables, chairs, cloths and crockery in a lorry. They set up kitchen at the back of the house from where wafted appetising aromas, especially of the suckling pigs being roasted. Each child also had his/her birthday observed in a time-honoured family way. Two soft-boiled eggs at breakfast before going to school. The pickety-finicky girl could not work out why this was a treat. An egg every morning was punishment enough but two, with white not quite white and smelling of egg, was a hard act to swallow. The treat later at dinner was a treat by all standards, a whole meaty leg of roast duck covered with crispy golden skin for her and her alone. This singling out could be enjoyed wholeheartedly without the embarrassingly implicit announcement attached to the hung-jou soup. It was some years before parties and birthday cakes became part of a birthday celebration and Luk Yi would come with her selection of kuihs.
Regular visits to Popo’s Shop when she was living there brought yet another kind of cusine to savour. From the kitchen of the Hainanese cook came steaming bowls of mai-fun, plates of fried min and porkchops in the Malayan Hainanese style. These visits were usually at night after Papa had returned from work. Siu-yeh or supper late at night became a treat to look forward to and night-time outings often ended with fried noodles brought home and eaten from their warm lotus leaves wrappings. Siu-yeh could also be homemade and turned into Malayan versions of midnight feasts a la boarding school stories. The spice of it was the secrecy. Stealing into the kitchen, the four led by Daai-Ga-Je set the wok on the charcoal stove to fry rice or noodles. Plates of the forbidden food were stealthily carried upstairs with cups of Chinese tea and a midnight feast was had, beyond the dreams of Enid Blyton. On an occasion to honour Didi-1’s visit to the house, an over-enthusiastic stirring of the rice made a hole in the wok for which a confession had to be made to Mamma the next morning.
Back home with Ah Koong and Ah Mah there always were little treats in the tins full of varieties of cookies and biscuits on the low cupboard by their beds. Ah Koong in a good mood would dip into his tins and hand out pieces to the waiting children. Ah Mah far more generous and understanding of hungry pangs issued the blanket invitation to help themselves. Which the children did until the tins were empty. Ah Mah smiled approvingly exclaiming that the goodies had disappeared into her long-necked bottles and hastened out to replenish her tins with new varieties. Swotting before exams and a sympathetic Ah Mah would increase the supply, knowing well the need for encouragement and for firing the brains. But even better than exam times were the occasions of squabbles between Ah Koong and Ah Mah after which they were not speaking to each other. Going out separately instead of in their usual mandarin-duck twosome, Ah Koong and then Ah Mah returned each weighed down with his/her own goodies and vied for the children’s affection by plying them with their buys. Even Ah Koong would say ‘help yourselves’. Days of rich pickings. If the children tired of these offerings there were always jars of dried figs or dried scallops to pinch from, the ingredients for the soup that appeared on the dining table every day.
The discerning girl would not agree that all food was tasty or perhaps Mamma had the knack of spoiling some. The only way to handle a bowl of min-sin, always given when she was convalscensing from a childhood illess, was to bolt it down. Before the min-sin soaked up all the soup and left a gooey mess, even less palatable than it was meant to be, bland and colourless so as not to startle a fragile stomach. Coffee which was said to be heaty was a rare treat but Mamma had to spoil it by allowing it only when the children took their monthly dose of castor oil on an empty stomach. The cunning girl learned to outwit Mamma by pretending sleep until Mamma had gone to the market and she would hastily down some breakfast, rendering herself unfit for the dose of castor oil. For many years later drinking coffee was always accompanied by the sickly smell and taste of castor oil. Luckily that vanished as did the notion of gooey min-sin which was found to be delicious if its blandness was hidden under lots of tasty ingredients. Iced Ovaltine the required health-giving subsitute for heaty coffee and cooling tea never did redeem itself. Licking slices of frozen slices of butter at the end of a fork was a childhood delight that has become yukky.
There were early indications that Ah Koong’s ancestral wine course through the veins of all. So small that she needed to stand on a stool, Meimei-3 could already sniff out a wine, even when diluted in soup.There she was poised every meal time when the servant hired for the period brought out the steaming bowl of nourishing soup with wine for Mamma during her confinement at the birth of her latest baby. Nose screwed to inhale, lips rounded for the hopeful sip. The observant girl deduced that there were in fact two contributing causes/courses intermingled. Mamma herself had confessed her liking for wine. As did Sei Yi who continues to demonstrate this inclination. Pondering the increasing number of babies, the speculating girl wondered if the love for wine was the reason that Mamma and Sei Yi had eight and seven children respectively. She was also quick to conclude that what did not kill Ah Koong would not kill her, especially as her intake would only be miniscule drops. Thus assured she ventured into early encounters with the intoxicating stuff. During visits or on longer holiday stays in Popo’s Shop she with her sisters and two cousins licked their fingers with eager curiosity after surreptitiously pushing them under the row of optics at the bar. Gin, brandy, whisky, and others licked one by one. They all tasted the same, bitter. The tenaciously reasoning girl could not accept that bitter drinks could be so enjoyably drunk by so many and took to listening and watching. At Papa’s drinks parties at home during Christmas and Chinese New Year with his friends from work or from church, she witnessed them enjoying glassfuls accompanied by the lou-ngau-yuk that Mamma had become an expert in making. She overheard tips that cigarette ash in drinks would send one crashing to the floor and the ill effects of mixing drinks. Ah Koong’s occasional offers of sips of his fiery mui-gwai-lou or ng-ga-pei though not really enjoyable were opportunities to learn hands-on.
The growing girl became a woman competent enough to reproduce some of the family recipes with pride and discriminating enough to tell good wines from plonk, appreciate the subtle differences of malts and blends and register the distinction between VSOP and XO. As did many of the children who grew up with her and share with her a Chang heritage. As now they gather whenever they could to partake of food that would be the envy of Ah Mah and drink without falling into heaps as befell Ah Koong.
26 July 2000