December 2, 2002.
An old friend asked me about the food in Ramadan over here today. He wanted to know if the food they sell and serve here during the fasting month of Ramadan is any different from the kind we normally serve. The answer if probably yes and no. We can still buy the food they sell at the Ramadan delicacies market in other months but perhaps we might have to look a bit to find the range in one place. As for making it at home, I guess that depends of the household. What I find disagreeable is that the delicacies market cropping up all over the place on Ramadan afternoons makes it seem like the month is a culinary celebration instead of a deeply spiritual month of soul and self purification. Then again its only my opinion.
There is something else about food here. After reading my friend’s email, for some reason the word gu comes to mind. It’s a shortened version of regu which means something like partner or pair, of a few things that simply go together. That is very much how many of us see things here, especially when it comes to food. Certain things just have their own gu. It is just the way things are supposed to be and if you do not follow the unwritten rule you just don’t get the thing just right.
The terobok fish is a rather popular fish here, it used to be rather expensive but not too long ago they began importing it from Bangladesh and the price became more affordable. Its a rather fatty fish with lots of tiny bone which makes eating it quite difficult for the uninitiated. one popular way of eating the fish is to rub it with a mixture of turmeric and a little salt then cooked on a hot plate. You eat thing with a sauce made from raw chillies, shallots, garlic, say sauce and tamarind juice ( you can replace the tamarind juice with lime juice). Alternatively you could have it in a masak asam: with a hot and sour sauce. There are several different versions of the masak asam, the two more popular ones being the Malaccan and Perakian versions. Do this and you have found the terobok’s gu.
Beef also has its gu. Stir friend beef needs capsicum to be just right. Beef satay has to be eaten with peanut sauce and a few slices of raw onion to make it hit the exact spot but these days many do without the onion for social purposes. Beef however is a bad example because it has gu with many different combinations of things. Chicken too is like this.
The siput sedut however is a different story. Its a longish snail beween an inch to an inch and a half long. You cut of the sharp tip to create a wind hole that allows you to suck out the content. Its gu is keladi (yam) stalk, cili api (small fiery chilli), coconut milk and turmeric. Get the mixture right and you wont even look at escargot. The only difference is, instead of eating one or three as you do with escargot, you take the siput sedut by the bowl and you eat it with rice or by itself if you like. Thisis my personal favourite and I still remember the look on one of my Mat Salleh friend’s face as he sat across me over lunch in Bandar Tun Razak (a satelite town for Kuala Lumpur). Its the sucking out the siput that really bothered him.
In a way, that is one of the essences of this place, the idea of the gu (by the way, the term is Kelantanese so don’t go asking West coast folks about it, you’ll only get blank stares).
An old friend asked me about the food in Ramadan over here today. He wanted to know if the food they sell and serve here during the fasting month of Ramadan is any different from the kind we normally serve. The answer if probably yes and no. We can still buy the food they sell at the Ramadan delicacies market in other months but perhaps we might have to look a bit to find the range in one place. As for making it at home, I guess that depends of the household. What I find disagreeable is that the delicacies market cropping up all over the place on Ramadan afternoons makes it seem like the month is a culinary celebration instead of a deeply spiritual month of soul and self purification. Then again its only my opinion.
There is something else about food here. After reading my friend’s email, for some reason the word gu comes to mind. It’s a shortened version of regu which means something like partner or pair, of a few things that simply go together. That is very much how many of us see things here, especially when it comes to food. Certain things just have their own gu. It is just the way things are supposed to be and if you do not follow the unwritten rule you just don’t get the thing just right.
The terobok fish is a rather popular fish here, it used to be rather expensive but not too long ago they began importing it from Bangladesh and the price became more affordable. Its a rather fatty fish with lots of tiny bone which makes eating it quite difficult for the uninitiated. one popular way of eating the fish is to rub it with a mixture of turmeric and a little salt then cooked on a hot plate. You eat thing with a sauce made from raw chillies, shallots, garlic, say sauce and tamarind juice ( you can replace the tamarind juice with lime juice). Alternatively you could have it in a masak asam: with a hot and sour sauce. There are several different versions of the masak asam, the two more popular ones being the Malaccan and Perakian versions. Do this and you have found the terobok’s gu.
Beef also has its gu. Stir friend beef needs capsicum to be just right. Beef satay has to be eaten with peanut sauce and a few slices of raw onion to make it hit the exact spot but these days many do without the onion for social purposes. Beef however is a bad example because it has gu with many different combinations of things. Chicken too is like this.
The siput sedut however is a different story. Its a longish snail beween an inch to an inch and a half long. You cut of the sharp tip to create a wind hole that allows you to suck out the content. Its gu is keladi (yam) stalk, cili api (small fiery chilli), coconut milk and turmeric. Get the mixture right and you wont even look at escargot. The only difference is, instead of eating one or three as you do with escargot, you take the siput sedut by the bowl and you eat it with rice or by itself if you like. Thisis my personal favourite and I still remember the look on one of my Mat Salleh friend’s face as he sat across me over lunch in Bandar Tun Razak (a satelite town for Kuala Lumpur). Its the sucking out the siput that really bothered him.
In a way, that is one of the essences of this place, the idea of the gu (by the way, the term is Kelantanese so don’t go asking West coast folks about it, you’ll only get blank stares).
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