Remember when (2)…

I remember when I was still small and there was this old, well…at that age, any adult would seem old…Malay lady whom we knew as Re’sah. She would come to my house with her kuih bahulu kept in airtight tins and my mother would buy some from her. I loved her kuih bahulu a lot…

…and hers came in all kinds of shapes – fish, for instance. That, of course, depended on the brass mould that she used to make them. In fact, I loved her kuih bahulu a lot more than the Chinese kay-nerng kor or what the Foochows call lung-ngor sold in town…

I had not eaten the traditional Malay kuih bahulu for a long time but during my recent trip to Sungai Petani, I was strolling around the TESCO premises and there was this stall making it. As I stood there watching, the guy gave me one to eat – FREE! Gosh! That would never happen here! You want to eat, you buy and you pay! I ate that…and the memories came flooding back. If I remember correctly, they were selling them at 50 for RM10.00. I decided to buy some home to give to my mother as I was sure that she too had not had that for a long time…

Those were the days when we found delight in the simplest of things – kantong or ice balls, for instance, never mind that we had to hold them in our hands, the ice melting and the syrup flowing through our fingers and down our hands and never mind that our fingers had turned orange from the colouring…and the ang tau peng (red bean with ice)…

I like the ang tau peng at Thomson Corner, opposite SHS…but the other day, I went to this café in the vicinity of the Paramount Hotel here.

What attracted me was the fact that they gave so much red bean…

…and the red beans were still whole and yet soft or mushy enough. Nice, very nice…like the ones we used to have when we were young!

By the way, has anybody noticed that our red beans here are smaller? They’re actually sweeter and a lot nicer than the red beans used in the cendol or ice kacang elsewhere. Don’t believe me? Come over to Sibu and try for yourself! LOL!!!

And I also remember when people used to say that they would eat porridge with salted fish to give the hint that they were very poor and could not afford a decent meal. Well, salted fish is VERY expensive these days…

…and I love the “long” variety. One small piece can cost up to RM3.00-5.00 these days and it may not be easy to get hold of some really good ones but Sophia was passing through Sibu a week or two ago to go to Sarikei to attend a relative’s wedding…and on the way back, she bought me one WHOLE fish – “ngor hu” no less, which is supposed to be of better quality and expensive.

Just fry a piece, garnish with some chopped chilli and squeeze kalamansi lime over it. Yum! Yum! With that alone, I can easily lick two plates of rice or porridge clean but unfortunately, I need to exercise a bit of self-control these days…just a bit! Hehehehehehe!!!!