EatingAsia

On Islam, Politics, and Hidden Pork Stalls

A few weeks ago we sat at a table in a rear corner of Songkhla's morning market, nursing kafe booran ('ancient coffee' - the magic words that just might land you a non-Nescafe caffeinated beverage in Thailand). Halfway into my second glass, as neurons and synapses sprang to life, I focused on the scene in front of me.

A row of pork stalls: ladders of ribs and tenderloins dangling from hooks, pig heads propped on wooden counters, the notched surfaces of butcher blocks made from thick sections of tree trunk littered with odd pink bits. Behind me a butcher used a blowtorch to burn the hairs from a pyramid of pig's feet.

These stalls stood side-by-side and back-to-back with others displaying fresh vegetables and southern Thai kitchen staples like naam budu (super-fermented fish sauce along the lines of bplaa raa), palm sugar, taramind, and chilies. Behind each stood a headscarf-wearing Muslim woman.

As the (male and female) butchers and Muslim vegetable and sundries sellers worked they bantered back and forth, sometimes vacating their own stalls to hang out at their neighbors' for a few minutes. Muslim shoppers carrying bags spilling leafy greens ambled down the pork row, stopping in front of mounds of snowy fat to chat with the pig meat purveyors.

Nothing special, right? Well...

In Malaysia pork stalls are concealed, hidden away so as not to offend. Most every Malaysian wet market has one, but they're tucked down an alley, segregated behind corrugated metal walls, housed in a separate building, or - in the case of our neighborhood market - located in a far corner of the basement car park.

Many of southern Thailand's - and the majority of Malaysia's - residents are Muslim. So why the pork segregation in the one, but not the other?

For an obvious reason. Maybe.

Thai Muslims may comprise a relatively large portion of the population in southern Thailand, but they are a small minority in the country as a whole. For whatever reasons (and this post isn't about that) Bangkok has refused to recognize this population's language, culture, and Malay ethnicity; it's this non-recognition that's often cited as one of the drivers behind the deadly insurgency that plagues Thailand's south. In southern Thailand Muslims may be numerous, but it's most certainly vegetarian and pork-eating Buddhists (contrary to belief in some quarters, to be a meat-eating - and cooking - Buddhist is not so unusual, at least not in this part of the world) who run the show.

So I suppose you might say that Songkhla's - and southern Thailand's - Muslims (unlike Malaysia's) have had no choice but to accomodate, and that that accomodation is reflected in the market's lay-out: Muslims and pork, cheek by jowl (pun intended). Maybe.

But wait.

In Jakarta's Glodok (Chinatown) pork is also sold right out in the open, pig butchers sharing lane space with Muslim mutton, kuih (sweets), and vegetable sellers. In an alley nearby, Muslim vendors prepare gado gado and rujak to order within whiffing distance of the porky steam that rises from the wok of Chinese Indonesians pan-frying pork dumplings. As in some parts of southern Thailand, it appears to be an easy coexistence.

This certainly is not a case of a Muslim minority forced to accomodate. Far from it. Economic success aside, many Chinese Indonesians feel that they are second-class citizens  - a status that was, in fact, codified until recently.

Yesterday I lunched at Yut Kee, an early twentieth-century Hainanese establishment. At a nearby table sat three older Dato types ('Dato' is a Malaysian honorific title), two Chinese and a Malay (in Malaysia to be born Malay is - by law - to be born Muslim). While the latter tucked into his lamb chop his companions slurped beef noodles and shared roti babi, fried bread filled with pulled pork. A Malay eating in a non-halal establishment is something you rarely see here, though Malaysians of a certain age tell me that it wasn't such an unusual thing thirty or so years ago.

As a non-Muslim living in Malaysia who's lived and traveled extensively in neighboring countries with sizeable Muslim populations I can't help but draw comparisons. As a former political scientist I can't help but think about politics and politicians (and terrorists and insurgents) and their uses of religion. And as a food writer I can't help but focus on, well, food -  and reflect on the way that, in southern Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia politics and religion and the ways in which they influence each other are played out at the market, in restaurants, at table, on the plate.

I've been pondering all this for a few years, actually, but more so recently as I've been working on a couple of projects - one that's partly about food as an expression (or not) of identity, and another about Muslim self-expression in Malaysia and Indonesia.

I haven't yet come to any great understanding. I'm throwing this out here to see what bounces back. I'd love to hear from anyone with something to say; leave a comment or send me an email.

A final thought that springs from a snippet I read a few months ago, can't remember exactly where.

The author wrote that in Malaya a few decades before Merdeka (independence), to be Muslim wasn't akin to making a political statement. It was during that era - centuries ago - that Chinese traders / immigrants to what is now peninsular Malaysia and Singapore married local (ie Malay, Indian, and Thai) women, giving birth to Peranakan (Baba Nyonya) culture and its exquisite fusion cuisine.

That, I think, is one culinary revolution that could not happen today. At least not in Malaysia.

Note: When I first published this post, a couple of hours ago, it wore a more benign title: On Hidden Pork Stalls. What I'd originally typed were the words that the title line now bears; I changed themright before publishing. Now it's back the way I thought, at the outset, that it should be. Hm. Why did I 'dumb down' my title in the first place? Not quite sure, really.

Note: Thanks everyone for your comments (a record, in fact), and keep them coming!  When you add yours it will not appear on the post page, but on a subsequent comments page. To view your comment after you've added it click on the two small orange arrows at the very bottom of the page - this will take you to subsequent comment pages.

Postcards From Manali II: Thukpa, Momos, and More

Dave's been busy. Above, mutton curry and daals. Below, thukpa (spicy Tibetan noodle soup) and momos (boiled dumplings stuffed with mutton) with green chili chutney. Enough to make my inner bumpkin green with envy.

Below, a selection of Indian milk-based sweets finishes the (two) meal(s).

Postcards From Manali: Twos

This is a bit strange, uploading Dave's photos and not having a thing to write about them.

He's in Himachal Pradesh for the next twelve or so days, attending a photojournalism workshop. Time allowing, he'll be sending visual updates.

And yes, there will be food.

Isaan in Southern Thailand, By Way of Bangkok

The Photographer is settling in at a hilltown in northern India's Kullu Valley, and I'm deskbound, weighted by deadlines and unfinished tax returns. Feeling a bit sorry for myself, to tell the truth.

But it's nothing that a half hour of mind-travel won't cure.

Hard to believe that we were in Hat Yai jTypePad - Edit Postust over two weeks ago. Our last visit to that southern Thai city  was 15 years prior. Then, we'd arrived via Trang, sweaty, dazed, and little ill after two hours crammed into a gold metallic hot-rod share taxi driven by an amphetamine-addled speed demon. It was evening, and we soothed ourselves with an a/c room in a cushy hotel. I'm not sure we even ventured out for dinner. The next morning we flew to Bangkok. I can't remember a single bite from that Hat Yai visit.

This time is different. Again we've just one night, but that can mean three or four meals, and we've come with a list of recommendations from a Thai-speaking Kelantanese food lover. Oddly - given that Hat Yai lies in the land of curries and roti - the top spot belongs to Bann Khun Bpuu, an Isaan restaurant. Back in KL we're as deprived of authentic Isaan fare as we are of gaeng massaman, so we stroll over for dinner, salivating in anticipation of grilled pork neck, properly sour and spicy som tam, maybe a plate of sup nawmai (bamboo shoot salad).

Alas, we've unwittingly timed our Southern Thai road trip to coincide with a two-day public holiday. It's only 8pm but Baan Khun Bpuu's sold out, closing up for the night. The smells of grilled chicken, tamarind chili sauce, and fresh herbs taunt us. Gam, the portly, pony-tailed owner seems genuinely distraught by our disappointment. He apologizes, recommends another place around the corner (which turns out to be excellent), invites us back. 

So, though we'd planned to be on the road early the next morning, we decide to stick around for lunch.

Gam, it turns out, is from Bangkok. Why Hat Yai, why an Issan restaurant? Gam is too busy with the lunch rush to answer all our questions, but he tells us this: "Thais, every Thai, loves Isaan food. I love it. You can eat it anywhere, anytime. Why not Hat Yai?"

This makes perfect sense.

We start with a grilled pork neck salad (above). The meat is smoky, pleasantly chewy, its meaty opulence balanced by sour tomatoes, slivers of tart green mango, and plenty of tamarind in a dressing that also includes ground toasted rice, chilies, and lime juice.

Sup nawmai (bamboo shoot salad) displays its usual split personality: slightly off-putting and addictive at turns as the bamboo's fermented funkiness does a duet with lime juice, dried red chilies, slices of red onion, and clean, cooling mint leaves. The fact that this is an Isaan dish served in a decidedly southern Thai, ocean-proximate setting is reflected in the curled slices of squid balanced on top of the salad.

Yam mamuang bplaa dook foo ('exploded' catfish with mango salad) isn't actually made with catfish, but with snapper, Gam tells us. The dressing's a bit sweet for my taste but the crunchy fish 'floss' is delicious.

These - and an aggressively meaty-spicy pork laab with odd bits - go down well with sticky rice and fresh herbs and vegetables.

Baan Khun Bpuu's 'dining room' is a wide alley between two cement-walled buildings that, by virtue of loads of potted plants, wind chimes, and a rigged roof, has been transformed into a green and pleasant  little wedge of rural Thailand. Long and narrow, it's backed by a wood and charcoal-fired cooking area.

Too far into our meal someone fires up the barbecue and soon gai yang (grilled chicken)-scented smoke is wafting over our table. Pure torture, for we haven't an inch of room left. Then, shortly before we finish eating an auntie starts in on a batch of gaeng som (sour orange fish curry).

It's enough to make us predict that Hat Yai will be more than just an overnight stop, on the next trip.

Baan Khun Bpuu, east side of Pracharak Road between Prachathiphat and Suphasarnrangsan Roads (no English signage - look for the packages of crispy pork rind for sale out front, across from a school), Hat Yai. 1030am-dinner, closed Wednesday. Our lunch, with water, cost THB 157.

Tweet, Tweet

I suppose it's time to come out of the closet and admit that I am on Twitter (as EatingAsia). I resisted the lure of the tweetfeed for all the usual reasons (fear of narcissism, fear of looking stoo-pid, etc.), but since I started I've found it to be quite useful and even pretty fun.

Dave has informed me he would rather spend half a year eating whale blubber in the Arctic than tweet, but I might occasionally be able to persuade him to chime in should a photo-focused tweet come my way.

Getting in Touch with My Inner Bumpkin

In the late nineties Dave and I lived in Shanghai, and for about a year I commuted by train to Nanjing, where I spent Mondays through Fridays sifting through stacks of pre-Communist era archives. I quite liked my research, but I can't say I enjoyed those Monday morning and Friday evening train rides, when I'd be squeezed into a too-small seat and surrounded by folks shouting - to be heard above the din of tinny music and propaganda piped into the car - into their mobile phones. At least there was always conversation to distract me.

Queries from seat-mates would follow a predictable arc. Where are you from? How old are you? Are you married? How many children do you have? (A sharp intake of breath would always follow my answer of "None.") What's your work? What's your husband's work? What's his salary, and yours?

(In China, this is not an invasion of privacy. It's conversation.)

Then, "Can you eat Chinese food?" And "What's your favorite dish?"

"Jiaozi, shuijiao. Or daoshao mian," I'd reply truthfully, referencing the love of boiled dumplings and hand-cut noodles I'd developed when I taught English in Sichuan province in the mid-eighties.

Then the name-calling would begin: "Tulao-er!" (Bumpkin!) And then, "Nei shi nongmin cai!" (That's peasant food!)

Most of my fellow passengers were businesspeople from Shanghai, China's most cosmopolitan city, occupied by millions of urban sophisticates. (Or so Shanghai ren believe - or did then, anyway.) And many were old enough to remember, or had heard about from their parents, the lean years of the pre-Deng Xiaoping era, when meat was a luxury and noodles or rice occupied the center of the table.

In 1997 Shanghai rice was what you ordered at the end of a meal, and only if you were still hungry after feasting on fish, meat, and vegetables. Noodles, buns, or dumplings were everyday food, a snack or quick lunch or breakfast - certainly nothing to be considered on the level of Shanghai's famous cuisine (excepting Shanghai's own xiaolongbao). 

There I was, living in China's greatest city, naming the staples of the rural hinterlands - lumpy dough balls and irregularly shaped noodles shaved from a crude block of dough - as my favorite Chinese foods. Obviously I was crazy. Or a bumpkin.

(I'm proud to say I never backed down - and recall with amusement that after some good-natured back and forth, a few of my fellow passengers admitted that they, too, were huge dough lovers).

I remembered all this last month on Taiwan, where Dave and I ate a lot of dumplings and noodles, the kind of dumplings (thick-skinned, stuffed with pork studded with so many Chinese chives it was often green) and noodles (made with nothing but wheat flour, water, and salt and hand-cut into substantial, ropey strands) that transported us right back to Sichuan.

It was as if a long-dormant craving had been awakened. Here in Malaysia - anywhere in Southeast Asia, really - we're surrounded by noodles. But there is something about the weight and heft, the texture and mouthfeel, and (when they're made with really good flour) the flavor of of mainland-style wheat dough that hits a chord with me. It's a chord a rice flour noodle will never hit.

Away from China for so many years, I'd forgotten.

So, on Taiwan we ate shuijiao and daoshao mian (and other wonderful wheaty treats, like scallion pancakes and shuizhen bao - more on those to come) every chance we got. One day we ate them for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And woke up the next day eager for more.

Our day of all-dough piggery ended around 9:30pm, with a bowl of zhajiang mian from a stall on Da'an street run by 'Old Beard' (that's what the sign says). We'd just finished a plate of boiled dumplings at a stall up the street and were plenty full, but when we spied the pile of uncooked noodles as thick as my pinky finger next to Old Beard's boiler we knew we had to stop.

This is the kind of place where, when the noodles are running low, Old Beard or his helper (above) run into the back of the shop and whipup another batch quick as you please, rolling out and cutting the dough by hand.

And those noodles are fantastic, as satisfying a wheat noodle as a wheat noodle lover could wish for. For zhajiang mian, Old Beard crowns a mound of them with slightly sweet, slightly salty chili-bean sauce, sliced pork, and shredded cucumber. Pickled mustard and pickled scallion greens with chili are there on the side, to add as you wish.

On Taiwan, my inner bumpkin surfaced. I embraced it. And I don't care if Shanghai's most cosmopolitan denizens - and the rest of the world - knows it.

I. Am. A. Bumpkin.

Old Beard's Noodle Stall (noodles served a number of ways), Da'an Lu, a short walk from the train line's Da'an Station. Late afternoon till 10-ish or so.

Last Thursday Morning in Songkhla...

...was probably much like any other Thursday morning in Songkhla, except for the two bleary-eyed foreigners wandering the southern Thai city's 'old town' in search of caffeination (the sun rises an hour earlier there than it does in Kuala Lumpur, and so does the photographer).

We find it in the living/dining room of an elderly woman who earns a few extra baht by straining Thai grounds through a sock filter and serving the inky brew sweetened with condensed milk. Not the best kafe booran ('ancient' -- 'real' in other words -- Thai coffee, as opposed to Nescafe) we've ever downed, but good enough to get us rolling.

We'd arrived in Songkhla two days before and immediately fallen in love with its scrappy fishing port and semi-crumbling 'old town'. Finding the city's Thai Buddhist and Muslim residents to be extremely friendly, we're feeling quite at home.

After coffee we move on in search of something more substantive. The metallic slap of spatula against griddle lures us down old town's Thanon Nang-ngam to a corner tea shop - little more than the veranda of an old wooden house sheltered by a corrugated metal roof, really - where a Muslim vendor is serving up fresh roti  from her cart parked to the side of its entrance.

Here we find ourselves in 'same-same but different' territory. The hot tea is reminiscent of Malaysian teh tarik, but is more orange and stronger tasting, with that slight - and appealing - bitter bite that we associate with Thai iced tea. When rolling our her dough the roti vendor employs the same 'bubble' technique we observed in Kota Bahru (northeastern Malaysia), but her final product is lighter, more pillowy, and sports less grease than its Malaysian cousin.

And her burnt orange-hued lentil curry -- which she calls nam gaeng, or 'curry water' -- is sweet and barely spicy, mellow like the residents of this sort-of beach resort town, and all in all a more gentle introduction to the day than the angry red, sourish and incendiary curries that accompany many an Indian Malaysian roti.

As the sun moves around the corner of the building, we find the tea shot the perfect spot from which to watch the town awake. Patrons come and go; some regulars are obviously parked for the whole morning.

Across the street another vendor sets up her stall. As soon as she's open for business a queue forms which means, of course, that we must investigate. She's selling coconut sticky rice (plain white and yellow, colored with turmeric) with a variety of accompaniments, deftly wrapping each order in a banana leaf.

We sample the lot. The rice is masterfully made, extremely fragrant but neither moist nor heavy, each grain distinct and a wee bit al dente.

Yellow rice with naa gong (dried shrimp cooked with coconut milk and palm sugar) and mapraow (shorthand for coconut cooked with palm sugar) is our favorite combo. Shrimp and sugar may seem an unlikely combination, but the shrimp'ss brininess balances the opulent butterscotchy-ness of palm sugar cooked with coconut milk; slivers of lime leaf lighten the richness.

As for the mapraow - let's just say that if she encased this coconut-palm sugar mixture in chocolate and sold it in the US she'd be a millionairess.

We also enjoy white rice with more of that coconut-palm sugar mixture, and a cap of sangkaya, a rich homely egg custard made with coconut milk and more palm sugar.

We finish (see opening photo) with more white rice, another - yes, another - blob of coconut-palm sugar, and a dribble of the vendor's take on curry water. It's sweet, barely spicy, perfumed with lime leaf, and studded with fantastically fresh tiny shrimp, and goes brilliantly with the coconut rice.

Before we know it an hour and a half have passed. We're more than full but don't regret a single bite. One more cup of tea and we're on the road, plotting our next visit to Songkhla.

Teashop and roti vendor, south end of Thanon Nam-ngan, Songkhla old town. Sticky rice vendor, right across the street from about 7:45am (usually sold out by 10am, she says).

Hands-On In Northern Thailand

I've been cooking from Naomi Duguid and Jeffrey Alford's books (Hot Sour Salty Sweet; Mangoes and Curry Leaves; Beyond the Great Wall et al) for over a decade. So it was kind of weird and very wonderful to find ourselves covering their first culinary class/tour in northern Thailand last February for Wall Street Journal Asia. Read my article in today's edition of the paper's 'Weekend Journal' it here, and check out Dave's accompanying slideshow. (More out takes from the story here.)

                             The makings of a Shan meal

To say that this class is 'hands-on' would be an understatement. Students did the wet market shopping and the cooking -- in traditionally Thai low-tech kitchens (think charcoal braziers instead of cooktops, two knives and a chopping block instead of a meat grinder, and good old mortar and pestle rather than a blender or food processor) -- from Day One.

 Khun Mae ('Mother') teaches students how to make rice flour dumpling sweets

To teach the class the couple brought in locals, only one of whom speaks fairly fluent English and none of whom are tourism or culinary professionals; the main 'instructor' was a 70-something-year-old grandma from Fang, north of Chiang Mai (by the end of the class everyone was calling her 'Mother'). Two days were spent in Fang where, in an outdoor kitchen on a beautiful lychee farm, a young Shan woman introduced students to her ethnic minority's cuisine.

Students were given shopping lists, but no written recipes, so they learned as Jeff and Naomi do when researching their books -- by watching and doing, and finding ways past language barriers to communicate with local cooks. Meals outside the 'classroom' were taken on the street, at markets, and in local restaurants.

                                  Shopping lists yes, recipes no

Culinary courses are, by their very nature, staged experiences, but this cooking class felt as 'true' as a cooking class could possibly be. Naomi and Jeff told me that they hoped to challenge course participants both inside and outside of the kitchen, to nudge them beyond their culinary and cultural comfort zones. Judging from students' comments they succeeded in this; though a few students acknowledged feeling like fish out of water that first morning in the wet market, by the last day of the class everyone seemed to be riding a high.

Oh, and did I mention that we ate exceedingly well?

              Students enjoy the fruits of their labors on a lychee farm in Fang

Details on the next class, to be held in January 2010, can be found here. 

Meet the Photographer - Kuala Lumpur Photography Workshop

We're a little late with this, but...

Dave will be conducting a brief sort-of workshop on Travel Photography this Saturday, July 11 at 2pm in Kuala Lumpur, at the MPH Bookstore in Utama 1. His (illustrated) presentation will last about an hour, and he'll hang around a bit afterwords if want to chat about photography. If you'd like to check out Dave's work beyond this blog (and beyond food) hop over to his photography website (recently updated) or his photo blog.

Dave's presentation is in conjunction with a pretty neat photo contest being put on by CIMB Bank, in which you can earn up to RM100,000 for your favorite charitable cause. (The photos on the site are Dave's.) Stop by to listen and watch or just to say 'hi'. He'd love to meet you. 

UPDATE July 10: The previously posted time of 1030a is wrong -- Dave's talk is at 2pm. Hope to see you there!

Take A Hard Left From Penang...