A spicy blend of tradition
Penang’s heritage of festive food shows the diversity of its Malay community.
WHY cook when you can buy? With today’s fast- paced demands, having time to spend in the kitchen is becoming a luxury.
Eating out is the order of the day, and even if one is forced into the kitchen, whipping something up fast is the preferred mode.
When it comes to traditional food, however, speed is close to impossible, even with the latest state- of- the- art kitchen gadgets.
This makes it unpopular with the young, admits Widad Rawa, a representative from the Badan Warisan Masjid Melayu Lebuh Acheh Pulau Pinang in George Town, Penang.
“Every family gathering or celebration, they will want the traditional delicacies, but only if their mothers or other family elders make them.
“Don’t ask the young people to cook the dishes themselves,” she quips. Which is why Widad was excited to showcase asam daging at the recent Eat Rite – Ritual Foods of George Town festival which marked the seventh anniversary of the city’s inscription as a Unesco World Heritage Site.
A recipe passed down through generations, asam daging is a kerabu ( Malay salad) dish of cow innards mixed with a creamy and spicy gravy.
“Preparing asam daging needs a lot of patience as it takes more than two hours to boil the meat parts to make them tender and nice.
“This puts off many young people from learning the recipe, except for those thinking of becoming a professional cook or chef,” says Widad.
Asam daging was brought over by the Rawa Malays from Rao in West Sumatra. They had settled in the colonial city more than 200 years ago.
“This dish is also called asam kebau in Rao where there are more buffaloes – kebau means buffalo.
“In the Malay tradition, a cow or buffalo is always slaughtered for festive occasions.
“The leftover meat is distributed among the villagers, but the innards or offal which are considered the best parts of the animal, are saved for the nobility and high- ranking members of the community like the headmen,” shares Widad.
Today, everyone takes offal, making asam daging a “common” dish.
“It needs to be cleaned properly though, to get rid of the smell. In the old days, we used chalk.”
Served with rice, asam daging can still be found at Rawa Malay homes during festive celebrations like Hari Raya. However, there is concern that the art of making asam daging may be lost among the young.
“In my family, my mother used to make it at least on one Friday each month because Friday is considered a holy day in Islam and we call it hari raya kecil ( small celebration). I’m trying to continue the tradition,” says Widad, 56.
Another dish that is a must for special occasions in a Rawa Malay home is barmeah, an Arab stew made of ladies’ fingers or okra.
“Barmeah means ladies’ fingers in Arabic. Unlike the Arab food that is the trend in Malaysia now, barmeah is very much a home- cooked dish, you can’t find it in the Middle Eastern restaurants.”
Widad says barmeah used to be a communal dish for weddings and other celebrations at the mosque.
“The whole Lebuh Acheh Muslim community would get together to cook it.”
The stew can be made from the bones of a cow or goat. Some would add chunks of meat to the stew.
“To make the stew more fragrant, you need to add some fried onions and a small spoonful of ghee,” says Widad, adding that ghee is an essential ingredient in Arab cuisine.
In the Middle East, barmeah is eaten with the Arabic flat bread. What makes the Lebuh Acheh ver- sion typically Penang is that it is eaten with roti benggali ( Benggali bread).
“You can’t have it with your regular bread or rice because they don’t soak up the flavour as well as roti benggali. This is our George Town heritage,” Widad notes with a laugh.
George Town has a rich heritage of food, culture and tradition. And like any other heritage, it needs to be understood and valued before it can be preserved for future generations, says Prof Tan Sooi Beng, a George Town heritage celebrations curator, and an ethnomusicologist from Universiti Sains Malaysia.
“The best way to experience a culture is to eat the food – and, as we discovered in our own research for this year’s festival, it is also to cook the food,” she says.
For the heritage celebrations this year, the curator team had sought out community cooks and culinary experts on the island to share their age- old recipes and cooking techniques.
Prof Tan believes what makes the traditional food in Penang unique is the multicultural mix, due to its history as a colonial trading post.
“Brought in by early immigrant settlers of different races, the ritual and festive foods have been adapted to the environment here and influenced by the food of other communities they live side by side with.
“In other words, these foods have been localised – with new ingredients added and new styles of cooking merged,” adds Prof Tan.
Even for the Malay community, it has been noted that its food reflects the blending of the indigenous Malay Muslims with the Muslims from the Middle East, Indian subcontinent and Europe, who had travelled to the region for the spice, perfumery and cloth trade, as well as those from neighbouring Indonesia and Thailand.
Significantly, this rich fusion of tastes reflects how the local people have always been open to other races.
So, it can be said that if our young lose their appreciation of heritage foods, they are in danger of losing the intercultural exchange and mixing that they symbolise.
BarmeaH
Serves 10
1kg beef or lamb, with bone 4 tbsp oil 7 garlic, blended 7 shallots, blended 2.5cm ginger, blended “four siblings spices” ( 4 cardamom pods, 1 cinnamon stick, 4 cloves and 4 star anise) 1 pkt beef curry powder 425g tomato soup 215g tomato puree 4 large onions, diced 4 tomatoes, diced 500g ladies’ fingers salt and sugar, to taste 1 tbsp ghee 500g deep fried shallots
Boil the meat until soft. Heat oil in a pot and saute blended garlic, shallots and ginger until golden brown.
Add the four sibling spices, followed by the beef curry powder and saute until well cooked.
Add tomato soup, tomato puree and 1 can of water ( use the tomato soup can) to the pot and cook over a high flame until it boils.
Lower the heat and add the meat, cover the pot and stir occasionally.
When the meat is tender, add diced onions and tomatoes, followed by the ladies fingers.
Add salt and sugar to taste, then add the ghee and stir well.
Top with crispy fried shallots and serve with roti benggali. * The “four sibling spices” is the base of most Malay soups, stews and curries. The spices are normally used whole.
aSam dagINg
Serves 20- 30 250g ( each) cow or buffalo offal – spleen, liver, heart, lungs, intestines ( perut muda), stomach ( perut kitab), tripe water, enough to cover offal a handful shallots, blended a handful ginger, blended 3 sticks lemongrass, pounded 2 turmeric leaves ½ tsp turmeric powder 1 tsp cumin 500g coconut milk ( santan) salt, to taste a handful shallots, sliced finely a handful whole coriander seeds – dry fried until aromatic cili padi, pounded ( to taste) kerisik, pounded ( to taste) fresh lime juice, to taste
Wash and clean the offal thoroughly. Boil the offal for up to 2 hours with all the ingredients, except coconut milk and salt.
When the meat is tender, add the coconut milk and salt and leave to braise until the mixture begins to boil. Remove the meat to a large plate or cutting board. Let it cool for a bit and slice into smaller pieces.
Make the kerabu by combining all the ingredients together with a few tablespoons of the meat gravy. Season to taste with lime juice and salt and serve.