It’s a sin…

It’s a sin to waste, or so they say. Well, this Foochow delicacy is made from soya beans and in the past, anybody who sold soya bean milk would be selling these…

They are called tee piang and as you can see, they add a lot of kuchai (chives) in these that I bought at 20 sen each from a small corner shop at Rejang Park, the other end of the block beside the cinema complex.

During my younger days, they were much bigger – maybe three times the present size…and at one time, there was a stall at the Tiong Hua Road junction at night, selling very nice ones that were stuffed with meat. These days, if you want those, you can get pretty nice ones at a coffee shop along Jalan Morshidi Sidek – the road leading directly to Wisma Sanyan. But some people prefer them without meat…

At one time, I used to make soya bean milk a lot and I would throw away the pulp. My aunt, since deceased, was horrified by the wastage when she saw that and asked for the pulp. She took it home and added chopped chilli and onion and pounded dried prawns, plus salt and msg according to taste and then she patted them into cakes and deep fried them. They were really delicious – something like vadai or kueh dhall…except that a different kind of beans had been used. I guess should anybody want to make them today, it would be nice to add some chopped curry leaves (which were not so much in use at the time) as well.

Moving on, I went to church on Sunday which happened to be Father’s Day and after the service, they were distributing these little gifts to all parents…

There was a prayer on the other side and I thought it would be nice to use paper that had been printed on one side to make such things to give away on special occasions like Teachers’ Day, for instance…

…with a touching and meaningful poem on the other side. Wouldn’t that be better than spending a fortune on those expensive flowers that would probably wither away after a day or two? Or those presents from the gift shops that more often than not, one does not know where to put and does not have the heart to throw them away?

You can save paper and thus, save the environment as well…and at the same time, save your money too. Waste not, want not…