by Yap Swi Neo
You Might Want To Marry My Husband
Reflections from Life
Yap Swi Neo
Monsoon Books
Burrough on the Hill
Published in 2021
by Monsoon Books Ltd
www.monsoonbooks.co.uk
No.1 The Lodge, Burrough Court,
Burrough on the Hill, Melton Mowbray LE14 2QS, UK
ISBN (paperback): 9781912049981
ISBN (ebook): 9781912049998
Copyright©Yap Swi Neo, 2021
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
‘Is The Soup Done?’ first published in My Life, My Stories (Verena Tay, ed.) Singapore: National Library Board, Singapore (2015); ‘In Towkey Lee’s Mansion’ first published in The Best Asian Short Stories 2020 (Zafar Anjum, ed.) Singapore: Kitaab (2020).
Cover design by Cover Kitchen.
Contents
Dedication
Is The Soup Done?
My Sisters, My Teachers
In Search Of The Perfect Jambu Batu Branch
The Men In My Life
Teacher, We Ronggeng
You Might Want To Marry My Husband
Kamani
The Girl In The Taj Mahal
Lily
Kam Jian Ding, PhD
Angel Cake
In Towkay Lee’s Mansion
Silent One
That Saturday Night Dance
To Zoom And Back
About the author
Dedication
In loving memory
Paul Yap Yeow Pin and Clare Tan Eng Neo
Much love always
Andrew, Arthur and Jacqueline, Austin, Ava
Is The Soup Done?
I grew up in a Peranakan family. The Peranakans are descendants of early Chinese male settlers in Malaysia, who worked in tin mines, rubber estates and as labourers in the towns. They married local Malay women and over time evolved their own sub-culture, a blend of Chinese and Malay customs, evident in their food and patois. The centre of the household was the dapur, the kitchen. The matriarch ruled the dapur and all daughters were taught the fine art of Peranakan culinary arts. We spoke our own patois known as Baba Malay, as well as English, Malay and Chinese.
When I think of Tua-Ee, my first aunt, I always see her in her samfoo,[1] bent over the wood fire, carefully stirring her soups over the red mama stove in Grandfather’s house. She was the queen of soups, and her queen of queen soups was her salted vegetable and duck soup.
‘Watch. Duck, one duck – cut into six pieces. Two ducks, how many pieces? You know why we cut one duck into six pieces? Why?’ That was a rhetorical question. We were asked thousands of times, ‘Why?’
‘Because we boil the soup s-l-o-w-l-y for a very long time. Why?’ Another rhetorical question.
‘See?’ Yes, we saw.
‘Now we pour two tablespoons of brandy and rub into the duck. Why? To season the duck. Brandy, wangi sekali,[2] gives it a very nice rich flavour. Leave it aside. Now we prepare kiam chye.[3] One duck, one kati[4] kiam chye, so two ducks, how many katis? Cut into quite large pieces, wash in plenty of water, then soak for about thirty minutes. Why?’ In Tua-Ee’s kitchen, there were always many ‘why’ questions to answer.
Our kitchen was about four metres from the main house. It was a four-pillar structure about two-and-a-half by five-and-a-half-metres in size. It was an open-kitchen concept, decades ahead of its time. Three sides had plank ‘walls’ about thirty centimetres from the cement floor and about one metre high. Between the top of the walls and the roof was a one-metre ventilation space for the smoke to ease itself out like the genie from the lamp. The walls were painted an oil-based black paint, to prevent wood rot. The roof was made of attap, thatched leaves made from the nipa palm.
On the right side of the kitchen wall was a zinc door opening to the outdoor wash area, with a tap and a kolam, a cemented one-metre-high water container. We washed our cutlery and utensils with Sunlight soap. A bar of amber-coloured Sunlight soap was twenty centimetres long. It was an opaque and pretty bar. When held against the light, the soft threads of amber permeated through the Sunlight. It was cut into three: a piece for the kitchen, a piece for the bathroom and a piece beside the well to bathe the six dogs we had. Alongside the outer walls were nails on which we hung our pots and pans and washbasins. There was a place for everything and everything had its place.
The kitchen still stands in retired silent majesty, having provided comfort for the bellies of the family over three generations. Generations of migrant lizards and geckos, the true ‘children of the soil’, have enjoyed all the privileges of citizenship in the kitchen. We never knew where these cicaks came from but, having arrived, they made the kitchen their domain in perpetuity. They could never be driven out of their homeland, relocated or even teased away. Their singing, gossiping and complaining broke the silence of the night, but these squatters never frightened any of us. Time and again, when they were too noisy, we playfully tried to smoke them out, never very successfully. They played hard to get, darting and leaping across the attap. When threatened, they shot their little tails off. The little wriggling tail, wherever it was, was fascinating to watch, until the wriggling ceased. Not to worry, lizards will never be without a tail – lose one, grow another one. Cicaks and geckos have feelings too. They showed their displeasure with tiny little droppings during the night. Eventually death would come; we swept away their dearly departed. At other times they celebrated new life, leaving us empty little white shells on the stove tops as ‘News Flash – Latest Addition’ signs. Sometimes I wondered whether we had unknowingly cooked a lizard alive in our stoves. My cousin assured me we had not; neither cicaks nor geckos had fallen off their homes into any of Tua-Ee’s soups.
Looking into the kitchen from the house, we saw the red inverted-U cement block, solidly staid. Into it was carved papa stove, mama stove and baby stove, which took up three-quarters of the surface. The other quarter was the utility space for the cooking oil, various sauces and other condiments. Below the stoves was the storage space for the firewood. Each stove had a different purpose. Papa stove was for the big woks and pots, which played their part during celebrations and festivals. The papa-stove pot could easily hold four ducks for the salted vegetable and duck soup. Mama stove was for the smaller pots and woks for daily use. Baby stove was for the kettle and pots to boil eggs and heat up leftovers.
The morning of the last Sunday of the month was the morning of the middle-aged Malay ‘firewood man’. The affable pakcik,[5] with a light whip on his bullock, parked his cart right beside the kitchen. Pakcik, always smiling, had rubber tree logs chopped into two-foot-long pieces, and split into five to six pieces. He patiently unloaded the wood at the designated area beside the kitchen. After a cup of coffee and two slices of toast, he waved us goodbye with, ‘Satu bulan lagi, saya datang.’ True to his word, he would come by the following month.
Tua-Ee taught us how to dry the pieces of firewood thoroughly, to arrange them in their storage place under the stove, to light a fire and, very importantly, how to douse the fire after the kitchen work was done. Her instructions were clear and precise: ‘Arrange four thicker pieces parallel. Then arrange the other pieces crisscrossed up to waist high. Why? This is to allow air to flow between the pieces of wood and dry them more efficiently.’ When
fully dried, we stacked the pieces of wood in neat piles under the stoves. Everything was within reach, ready for the preparation of our meals.
However, during the rainy season, the pieces of wood became damp. Just damp, not wet. Tiny white-grey fungi slowly pushed their sleepy heads through little eye slits in the wood, and then were in a hurry to mature into adulthood, ready for the taking. Their seemingly incessant screams, ‘Eat me! Eat me!’ like the ‘EAT ME’ cake that Alice found in her wonderland, before they grew into such a tremendous size, were deafening. We silenced them. Well, they wanted to get into hot soup, so we obliged! A soup of fried garlic and chicken stock was allowed to boil, ‘Eat me!’ added, two beaten eggs poured in, chopped green onions and parsley thrown in, a tornado stir given. After it had passed the ‘Is the soup done?’ test, it was deliciously slurped down. It was our soup, not a soup for anyone outside our family circle. That was more than half a century ago.
On weekends and holidays, our favourite breakfast was hot toast. After the morning coffee was brewed on baby stove, the cinders of the wood made a perfect toaster. Slices of bread were placed on double wire mesh and beautifully toasted to perfection. They were then turned over, and Planta margarine spread on them, topped with a sprinkling of sugar or sometimes condensed milk. We watched our toast with unblinking Barbie doll eyes, as the sugar melted on the margarine, emitting the
most delicious aroma.
Tua-Ee, though petite, ruled in the kitchen like an Amazon matriarch, dignified, strong and completely in charge. To her, the kitchen demanded respect. ‘The dapur[6] is the source of life. Life needs food. No kitchen, no food!’ Every day we would help her with chores such as preparing shallots. (Shallots sliced into cross sections, lengthwise, pounded, smashed, or left whole, gave different flavours and were to be used in different dishes.) Working mostly from the square kitchen table in the middle of the kitchen, Tua-Ee would share and discuss news, dispense judgements and point out lessons for us children: ‘See what happened when that Lucy … always … People say he got … So, remember … You must always do … Don’t …’
There were more don’ts than dos. Tua-Ee was very emphatic that we remember whatever she had taught (be it recipes or life skills) and made us repeat instructions after her so often that her ‘Remember!’ is still remembered to this day.
The day’s lessons were usually taught in just the right amount of time for Tua-Ee’s soups to be made and tasted. For instance, her salted vegetable and duck soup simmered gently over papa stove for several hours. When the twelve pieces of dried tamarind, two-inch piece of ginger, slightly bashed, and twelve salted sour plums had obediently taken their places in the six-litre soup pot, Tua-Ee, left hand on hip, right hand holding a ladle of boiling soup, would taste the soup. Then she would administer the test. Looking straight into our eyes, she would ask, ‘Is the soup done?’ We had to answer, yes or no, for with Tua-Ee, one was wise not to complain, only comply. When we got it right, she teased, ‘So c-l-e-v-e-r to guess.’ If we got it wrong she lamented, ‘Next time, what would your mother-in-law say, ah? Your mother n-e-v-e-r teach you. Where to put your face? So malu!’ My cousin (her daughter) and I, the fifteen-year-old and the eleven-year-old, swore we would never ever get married and live with mothers-in-law who would administer the ‘Is the soup done?’ examination and put our mothers to shame.
‘Tua-Ee, how will we know when the soup is done?’
‘You will know, you will know.’
Even with Tua-Ee’s teaching, I have never known whether my soups are done. Today the instructions on the slow cooker, thermos cooker and pressure cooker decide.
To Tua-Ee, family recipes were not only taught; to ensure that the girls in the family learnt, she instructed, ‘Copy the recipe. You young people nowadays are not interested in cooking. Dulu kala,[7] in the time of my grandmother, at five years old I was peeling onions and frying eggs and pounding sambal. Copy the recipe, or you will forget!’ We dutifully wrote in our ‘555’ exercise book, our very first recipe, sambal belacan, a shrimp paste and chilli condiment, the must-have condiment at every meal.
Tua-Ee dictated, ‘Sambal belacan[8]. Cut out a one-finger thick piece belacan,[9] eight red chillies, three pieces daun limau perut.[10] For a very spicy sambal, don’t deseed the chillies. Cut the spine off the kaffir lime leaf. Grill the belacan slowly over the cinders till you smell the cooked aroma. How to pound. Make sure the mortar is dry. Pound the belacan and chillies, not too fine, then add limau perut. Continue pounding till the leaves are very fine. Sedap sekali, very delicious, yah?’
The person who tumbok-ed the sambal got a special treat – the nasi tumbok. After the sambal has been scooped into a serving bowl, half a bowl of freshly cooked rice was lightly pounded in the lesong, or mortar, to absorb the sambal residue. With a squeeze of calamansi juice, the nasi tumbok was eaten off the mortar using one’s fingers. My cousin and I licked our fingers often with such gusto that Tua-Ee cheekily teased, ‘Next time your mother-in-law will say: you ah, ta’ seronoh, so sedap, until jilat jari! This not KFC, lick your fingers ’cos it’s so delicious. So un-daughter-in-law behaviour!’[11] All this happened more than five decades ago. It never occurred to Tua-Ee that we might marry ‘others’, and there would not be a need to tumbok sambal belacan. For instance, today’s sambal belacan recipe tells us:
Tools required:
A mini blender or food processor.
A non-stick pan to toast the belacan.
Tips:
When de-seeding chilli, wear disposable plastic gloves to prevent chilli burn.
Belacan has a pungent aroma. Open your kitchen windows when toasting belacan.
Put away all laundry (if you have them in the kitchen) if you do not wish the belacan smell to permeate into your laundry.
Air your kitchen after cooking.
Serve with calamansi. If you do not have calamansi, substitute with larger lime or lemon (try your best to buy calamansi as it gives the best taste).
I can hear Tua-Ee gasp for breath. ‘Apa ini? What’s all this ah? You cannot use a blender to pound sambal! You cannot use lemon juice! Alamak! No mother would want you as daughters-in-law! If you marry, we would be put to shame by your mother-in-law, grandmothers-in-law, sisters-in-law, aunts-in-law and whoever else. Malu sekali, so shameful!’
I forget. Today’s recipes are for city dwellers in housing estates where the kitchen, the laundry area and the pantry are a three-in-one. The sound of pounding mortar and pestle might annoy neighbours and we might be advised not to prepare sambal belacan at home, or if we still wanted to, we must check whether our neighbours are home and ask for their permission. Or we can simply buy a bottle of factory-prepared sambal belacan from NTUC supermarket! Cutting calamansi into two and washing lime leaves do not generate any noise, so that’s allowed. I can ‘see’ the size of the piece of Tua-Ee’s belacan, as they came in brick-size blocks then. Today, belacan comes in granules, blocks or balls, in different colours and textures. What then is the size of a piece of belacan?
Tua-Ee whispered, ‘Look. Use your eyes.’
All of Tua-Ee’s recipe ingredients and instructions in basic English and Malay had parentheses to explain and clarify further. My cousin and I and anyone reading them just cannot go wrong. When I set up my own home, I read my ‘555’ exercise book with nostalgia, marvelling at how times had changed over one generation. Tua-Ee’s views reflected her time. What did she get for her marketing? 25 cents onions for two recipes; 15 cents nice red chillies for three servings of sambal belacan; $1.50 bak kut soup[12] base enough for two servings. Her advice on choosing the freshest ingredients still resonates in me:
‘When you buy prawns, always see the head; if loose from body, not fresh; also smell, if not good smell, then not fresh.’ For added emphasis she made us write in parentheses: ‘(Don’t buy)’.
‘To buy chickens, choose noisy ones.[13] If they are not noisy it means they are not healthy, already lemah.’
‘Brown-shell are better th
an white-shell eggs.’
‘Brinjals, choose light ones, heavy ones are full of seeds.’
‘Worms and bugs make their homes in dried beans, so look carefully that there are no holes in the beans.’
She had her favourite stalls and gave explicit instructions on whom to buy from. Buy from Hong Huat. Buy from Ah Pek, don’t buy from the son. If Ah Pek not there, don’t buy.’
When the salted vegetable and duck soup had passed the ‘Is the soup done’ test, Tua-Ee instructed, ‘Leave the lid on. The soup will continue to boil. Just now so much water. Now, see, less soup already.’ Before dinner, the soup was gently reheated and just before serving, two tomatoes, quartered, were tossed in. Like Oliver Twist, we watched as our soup bowls were filled with a piece of duck, several pieces of salted vegetables, and a wedge of very red tomato and piping hot soup. There was enough, we need not ask for more. Together with a serving of sambal belacan and half a calamansi, a plate of freshly boiled rice, we feasted. There was never a need for words.
Now, two generations later, my cousin and I, two grandmothers, can only sit side by side, in silence, but knowing exactly that we still hear Tua-Ee testing us, ‘Is the soup done?’ Tua-Ee’s pencil-written recipes in her yellowed, oiled, torn ‘555’ exercise books are barely legible. The last written recipe dated 17/8/79 was ‘Thousand Island Dressing’. We never knew whether she had prepared that. Our own ‘555’ exercise books with pencil-written recipes have long been replaced with published coloured recipe books such as The Best of Balti Cooking, Thai Made Easy and No Mess Baking. Our kitchen houses Teflon utensils, the slow cooker, the thermos pot, the microwave oven together with blenders and choppers and electronic knife sharpeners.
No, we do not miss papa stove, mama stove, baby stove, the cicaks and geckos. But Tua-Ee, we miss you; we miss your salted vegetable and duck soup. It is the best in the world. We are glad you have taught us well. We love you.
