I Love to Eat!

On Friday morning, I received a phone call from Debs. She rings me from Singapore every now and then and I have to smile at the way she identifies herself in her youthful almost kitten-like voice … ‘It’s meeee". The oldest treasure in my sisterhood of friends - for I have known her, loved and of course argued, laughed and cried with her for as long as I can remember - called from home this time, and to my delight, she handed the phone over to her mother.

Auntie Anne sounded exactly as I remembered, twenty one years just melted away as we cackled and reminisced. And then it happened … the topic of food just spontaneously began. Within minutes of our first hellos, we were discussing with typical Singaporean enthusiasm – a comforting variety of curries, homemade pasta, cutlets, my step-father’s to-die-for moussaka, our shared total disdain for belachan (shrimp paste), and my beloved dodu (crazy) brother-in-law Keiron’s cultivation of kachang panjang (long beans) in Western Australia. Then without me even asking, she began to recite to me her recipe for Corned Beef Curry, using canned corned beef - a pantry cupboard staple in every Eurasian home - no matter where in the world. I quickly jotted it down on the spiral notepad with biblical quotations that I had recently brought home from work. I glanced to the top of the page … Love is always patient and kind. I smiled and nodded my head as I wrote down her instructions “be generous with the onions” - which I underlined. Auntie Anne has always been kind to me.

There were many occasions in high school when my friend Jennifer or Fi as we have always called her, Debs and I would spend time together after class. We were in the morning session which meant classes were over by 1.00pm. Spending time at each others' homes inevitably meant lip-smacking hot curry and rice, girlish chatter about boys that we would never in conclusion even utter a brief hello to, where to shop for the grooviest clothes and of course choreographing our versions to those funky 70’s disco moves. Homework was never even remotely on the agenda. Fi and I loved Auntie Anne’s cooking and so whenever Debs invited us over … we would gleefully always accept. Debs will remember how Fi was ever ready with her favourite word “Come!” meaning "Let's go!" whenever something was suggested. And so Fi would look at me, her eyes animated and with a slight wag of her head say, “Come! Maybe Debbie’s mum might cook putchree?!” (a spicy aubergine dish)

Decades later, after we had married and moved away, Fi and I upon meeting up some years ago in Perth, lamented that nobody makes Chicken Vindaloo or Putchree like Auntie Anne. Her recipes would always - in our expert assessment for we have tried many versions of both - remain the best. I can still hear Fi’s voice saying “The world!” That meant ... the world over.

A couple of months ago through Debs, Auntie Anne very generously bestowed me with the secrets to both the precious recipes of the mouth-watering yearnings connected to the memories of my childhood taste buds. *bbsigh* I have cooked these gems several times since and always enjoy the process because I have different memories each time of those precious school girl days.

Need I mention that when Fridays telephone conversation was over, I suddenly felt fully energised and immediately wanted to cook? I pulled out the box of onions in the pantry … I had to make this Corned Beef Curry. Typical, isn’t it how the mere mention of a dish that I know will tickle the fancy of Alan’s and my palates is all that is needed to propel me into action straight away? Nadia are you laughing? And to think, I was sick with the ‘flu and had already defrosted chicken as I was going to cook Chicken Tikka Masala as well.

This of course then got me thinking that I had to write a blog entry about food. Alan and I hardly watch TV, but I “literally” (to quote Jamie Oliver and the word should be read with his accent in mind) have my mobile phone set to remind us weekly when our Food Safari or celebrity chefs like Jamie Oliver and the Domestic Goddess, Nigella Lawson are on.

http://www.sbs.com.au/food/

Please check out Food Safari with Maeve O'Meara and Feast India with Barry Vera for a taste of our favourites.

Of course I grew up eating Eurasian food. I have readily admitted, in a previous blog entry I never truly enjoyed it very much after the death of my grandmother. How many of us can remember our grandmothers ever opening a recipe book and reading from it? They all cooked from memory over hot fires using charcoal or arang as fuel, in belangahs (earthen-ware pots) that had been seasoned with flavour from the years of everyday use. I cannot help but wonder how much was lost in the oral history of these Eurasian recipes that the great old ladies of the past handed down to their children.

Mama believed ingredients had to be fresh and began everything from scratch. Chickens, ducks, geese and turkeys roamed freely in her backyard. Something Jamie Oliver would thoroughly approve of, I might add - what with his latest ruffling of feathers on Jamie’s Fowl Dinners. The only thing I ever remember in mama’s little freezer, were Magnolia ice-creams in cardboard cartons and metal trays of ice-cubes.

All her spices were dried, lovingly hand sorted and sieved herself, then taken in calico pouches in a bechak (trishaw), with me in tow, to the mills. There she sternly eyed the Indian man who was perpetually in a turmeric stained checkered dhoti, as he ground her precious seeds of coriander or cumin, dried chillies etc. She made me watch him as well, for she was paranoid and always ready to accuse him in Tamil of adulterating the spices. She bought fresh gragok (shrimp) from the old Katong Market, dried them in thin layers on tangoks (woven trays) in the sun, together with other items like sliced mangoes and vegetables that she would pickle. When the gragok was dried, she would mix it with salt and knead it all together. I am sure she added an elixir to the mixture, but of course I never paid close enough attention. Finally she would form several extra-large rosy pink coloured patties of the mixture, and leave them to dry through. These were her beautiful belachan patties. She would smile at me in satisfaction. “Don’t forget, take one home for mummy this evening okay. Ahh .. plus take the salt fish achar also." All my childhood, she had been the sole provider of these delicacies. She was famous of all her pickles and belachan.

I still remember after we had finished the last piece of precious pink belachan after mama had died, and my mother came home with the store-bought version. I had never seen store-bought belachan or chin-chalok (a shrimp delicacy) or even pickles before. I silently watched, flabbergasted as mum rather reluctantly sliced a piece of ink-black belachan to toast for our sambal and a prawn curry she was making. Why was it black - isn't belachan supposed to be pink? It smelled fetid and I felt my stomach heave. I shut my eyes to what was unfolding before me, I had cried myself to sleep so many times since mama’s sudden death, now I grieved for all the flavors and cooking aromas she had worked so hard to create that I always took for granted. Never again would I hear her sing-song voice call out “Juuude! Qui vous te farse? Beng naki oh - help mama tumbok some sambal belachan.” (Jude! What are you doing? Come here and help mama to pound some shrimp paste sambal.)

I began to grow jelak (limited in choice) of Curry Devil, Feng, Smoh, Curry Captain, Curry Singang or Stew Pie to name a few of the stock favourites that became the standard offerings at every single Eurasian gathering. Plus, I think I always measured everyone’s cooking, including my mothers against that of my grandmother.

Thankfully Mum never cooked Eurasian food often for she loved to experiment and so Sharks Fin and Wanton soups and a variety of beautifully steamed and deep fried dumplings were what I remember from my very early childhood. Mum loved throwing dinner parties and always used to cook a variety of Peking and Sichuan dishes when she was going through her Chinese phase. And then it was French with Duck a l’Orange for instance instead of Curry Devil the Christmas of 1972, and the whole variety of terrines and pates that followed after that. I loved it.

When Alan and I began dating in the early 80’s I think he was awfully surprised that we hardly had Eurasian food at home for he had been brought up feasting mainly on Eurasian and Southern Indian food. He claimed with a big grin to mum “Auntie Val, I’ve led a very sheltered life." And then quickly added, "But I love to eat!"

His “I love to eat!” is probably how we began and it was the fabulous Chilli Crab at Red House along the old Upper East Coast Road when it used to be on the beach that did it. Sitting under the night sky with the sand between our toes and the lights strung haphazardly across the trees – electricity tapped from the old bungalow. The red bungalow from which the amazing, sizzling hot seafood dishes appeared. Alan and I happily ate with our hands – it was only our second official date for I cannot include the times in the years before as part of our courtship days. Mum had chided me for suggesting something so messy so soon in the relationship, but I was only being sensible for I felt the man I would choose to spend the rest of my life with had to know how to eat with abandoned enjoyment. Alan earned his wings that evening, he passed the test with flying colours!

At home today, Donny excels in what I call contemporary food and superb fine dining meals - mainly Italian and French. Alan bakes cakes for I am useless in the dessert course. You see, I fail when I have to measure. Alan's Key Lime Pie is out of this world especially when he compliments a slice with fresh cream and one of his fabulous ‘handmade’ café lattes. Bliss is the only way to describe the experience! As for me, I dabble with abandon. With a Shah Rukh Khan movie playing in the back ground and a cup of coffee within easy reach, I indulge in Indian, Thai, Chinese, Moroccan and lately Vietnamese cuisine. I love pounding all the spices by hand and inhaling their heady aromas. I base all my amounts on loving deduction and never according to the measured instructions in my cookbooks – for the cookbooks are there for the pretty pictures and to acquaint me with the ingredients required. I am breathing, I am in the moment.

Mama, I hope you are proud of me.