Meme: Childhood
I've been tagged by Eternity. Five childhood memories that relate to food. Only five?? My whole childhood memory revolved around food! Hahahaha!
1. Chinese New Year Reunion Dinner
When I think of my childhood and food, I think of my father's side of the family. Chinese New Year's Eve reunion dinner with my father's siblings and my cousins in Ipoh. My father had 6 sisters and 2 brothers. Needless to say I have a lot of cousins. My eldest uncle was the cook for the dinner. My mom and aunts helped him prepare the ingredients while my uncle and father watched over us. Traditional dishes prepared for the dinner are du doh t'ng (pig stomach soup) or lotus root soup to symbolise longevity, jew hoo char (fried shredded jacima with cuttlefish strip) eaten with lettuce to symbolise abundance every year, bak kien (pork roll in bean curd skin), steamed whole chicken and barbeque pork (earlier used for ancestral prayers). On New Year's Day, the family tradition was to have fried vegetarian tang hoon for brunch. My uncle would fry lots! Enough to feed whoever who came to visit the family on New Year's Day.
2. School holidays in Leong Tian House
During the school holidays, my family travelled up to Ipoh to see my uncle and aunts. The family home is on Jalan Leong Tian, which is why my cousins and I call the house Leong Tian House. Every morning, some of the grown-ups would go to the market and they always came back with yummy breakfast for everyone. I remember free flow of kopi-o. Yummm! I do not remember when it was my cousins and I started drinking kopi-o at breakfast. Nobody told us children can't drink coffee. To go with the kopi-o was yau char kwai and Ipoh jue cheong fun with mushroom sauce.
3. Lazy Sundays with my family
On Sundays, my dad used to buy Kampar style jue cheong fun from a coffee shop in Sect 14. Like my dad, the vendor was from Kampar too. They moved out to KL about the same time. My dad had been his loyal customer for many years. As cliche as it sounds, the vendor saw my parents get married, had kids, kids grew up and now both my parents are gone. The stall is still there, opened from 8.30am and all the jue cheong fun gone by 9.15am. When I still lived in PJ, I used to buy the jue cheong fun from time to time as the vendor still remembers my dad. Eating the jue cheong fun reminds me of the lazy Sundays we had at home.
4. Kampar Noodles
It was a long drive to Ipoh when we were little. My dad used to go through Kampar to get to Ipoh. Our treat was eating loe shue fun with fishball at a stall just behind the main road in Kampar town. My brothers and I used to look forward to the noodle stall. The food was good but more like getting to Kampar meant we were not far from seeing our cousins in Ipoh. After Kampar, we will pass Gopeng, then Kampung Kepayang and a little while more we will see the big Mercedes star on top of a hill! IPOH!!
5. Ting Ting Man and "A EE ai boh"
More memories of Leong Tian House in Ipoh. The familiar sound of "ding ding ding" used to get all the children in the house into a frenzy. The Ting Ting Man was here! Whose treat will it be this time? There were never any shortage of uncles and aunts who would treat all of us cousins to ice-cream or some candy from the Ting Ting Man. Another vendor who used to ply Jalan Leong Tian was a guy who sold Mee Mamak. Until now, we have not deciphered what he was shouting. We could only make out "A EE ai boh" which sounded like "Aunty, do you want?" in Hokkien. When we heard his cry, sudden clanging of plates in the kitchen and the grown-ups were frantically counting how many plates to bring out. One o f my aunts would shout for one of the kids to call the guy to stop. Next, the plates are brought out and always several raw egs are on one of the plates. If you brought your own eggs, the man charged less.
The baton has been passed on from:
1. Oswego Tea
2. Masak-Masak
3. Funky Cookies
4. Eternity
5. Thinking Aloud
I'm required to tag others to continue passing this baton.
1. Patrick Teoh: Tokkok
2. Afdlin Shauki: Inside My Head
3. Lim Ai Lian: Mama's Bag of Tricks
4. Lia Ong: Cuddly Family
5. Lynda Davies: Dinda's Blog
Enjoy!
1. Chinese New Year Reunion Dinner
When I think of my childhood and food, I think of my father's side of the family. Chinese New Year's Eve reunion dinner with my father's siblings and my cousins in Ipoh. My father had 6 sisters and 2 brothers. Needless to say I have a lot of cousins. My eldest uncle was the cook for the dinner. My mom and aunts helped him prepare the ingredients while my uncle and father watched over us. Traditional dishes prepared for the dinner are du doh t'ng (pig stomach soup) or lotus root soup to symbolise longevity, jew hoo char (fried shredded jacima with cuttlefish strip) eaten with lettuce to symbolise abundance every year, bak kien (pork roll in bean curd skin), steamed whole chicken and barbeque pork (earlier used for ancestral prayers). On New Year's Day, the family tradition was to have fried vegetarian tang hoon for brunch. My uncle would fry lots! Enough to feed whoever who came to visit the family on New Year's Day.
2. School holidays in Leong Tian House
During the school holidays, my family travelled up to Ipoh to see my uncle and aunts. The family home is on Jalan Leong Tian, which is why my cousins and I call the house Leong Tian House. Every morning, some of the grown-ups would go to the market and they always came back with yummy breakfast for everyone. I remember free flow of kopi-o. Yummm! I do not remember when it was my cousins and I started drinking kopi-o at breakfast. Nobody told us children can't drink coffee. To go with the kopi-o was yau char kwai and Ipoh jue cheong fun with mushroom sauce.
3. Lazy Sundays with my family
On Sundays, my dad used to buy Kampar style jue cheong fun from a coffee shop in Sect 14. Like my dad, the vendor was from Kampar too. They moved out to KL about the same time. My dad had been his loyal customer for many years. As cliche as it sounds, the vendor saw my parents get married, had kids, kids grew up and now both my parents are gone. The stall is still there, opened from 8.30am and all the jue cheong fun gone by 9.15am. When I still lived in PJ, I used to buy the jue cheong fun from time to time as the vendor still remembers my dad. Eating the jue cheong fun reminds me of the lazy Sundays we had at home.
4. Kampar Noodles
It was a long drive to Ipoh when we were little. My dad used to go through Kampar to get to Ipoh. Our treat was eating loe shue fun with fishball at a stall just behind the main road in Kampar town. My brothers and I used to look forward to the noodle stall. The food was good but more like getting to Kampar meant we were not far from seeing our cousins in Ipoh. After Kampar, we will pass Gopeng, then Kampung Kepayang and a little while more we will see the big Mercedes star on top of a hill! IPOH!!
5. Ting Ting Man and "A EE ai boh"
More memories of Leong Tian House in Ipoh. The familiar sound of "ding ding ding" used to get all the children in the house into a frenzy. The Ting Ting Man was here! Whose treat will it be this time? There were never any shortage of uncles and aunts who would treat all of us cousins to ice-cream or some candy from the Ting Ting Man. Another vendor who used to ply Jalan Leong Tian was a guy who sold Mee Mamak. Until now, we have not deciphered what he was shouting. We could only make out "A EE ai boh" which sounded like "Aunty, do you want?" in Hokkien. When we heard his cry, sudden clanging of plates in the kitchen and the grown-ups were frantically counting how many plates to bring out. One o f my aunts would shout for one of the kids to call the guy to stop. Next, the plates are brought out and always several raw egs are on one of the plates. If you brought your own eggs, the man charged less.
The baton has been passed on from:
1. Oswego Tea
2. Masak-Masak
3. Funky Cookies
4. Eternity
5. Thinking Aloud
I'm required to tag others to continue passing this baton.
1. Patrick Teoh: Tokkok
2. Afdlin Shauki: Inside My Head
3. Lim Ai Lian: Mama's Bag of Tricks
4. Lia Ong: Cuddly Family
5. Lynda Davies: Dinda's Blog
Enjoy!
posted by Min Chan at
2:41 pm
7 Comments:
guess we share that yau char kwai + kopi-o favourite then! =)
and boy are you fast at coming up with the meme!
Wah, so clever to talk about food. Make my mouth water. Lucky I no puasa. Me, I can only talk about hawker food in Seremban. Talking about that, we were suppose to stop by on our way to PD hor? Sorrylah, trip tak jadi.
By the way, you tag me I had to hunt down 5 people to tag. I wondered if I could tag you again since you have so many memories about food. You couldn't tell all right? Hehehe.
Cheers,
Ai Lian
hi Min! ^_^ oooh, i'm just salivating at all the yummy Ipoh food uve blogged!
Hi Zona! Both my parents loved to eat, so I guess I inherited that love of food from them. What is your blog site?
Hi, I am from Kampar. Which loe shue fun stall you were talking about ? Does it has a name ? I love kampar style chee cheong fun too. It is hard to find it here in KL. Luckily, there is one around my area. When I started to visit that stall every weekend, the lady boss asked me if I am from Kampar.
Hi SC, if you're asking about the low shue fun in Kampar, I do not remember the exact location anymore. It was a small stall in one of the side roads very close to the main road. However, if you want some good Kampar noodle with good "pork tendon" balls, check out the Glutton Street in SS2, PJ. The stall is called Kampar Noodle.
My father's favourite Kampar jue cheong fun place is in Sect 14, PJ. It's in a house converted into a coffee shop, parrallel to the main road where the mosque is. Between the mosque and Jaya supermarket. Available only from 8.30am - 9.00am. Most times I've had to queue up from 8.00am, to wait for the proprietor to open his stall.
great to stumble here... i miss any food related to kampar.... this post brings me good memories.
m frm kampar.
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