Due to our busy lifestyles, many of us no longer have the luxury of spending as much time in the kitchen as our ancestors who delighted in making many dishes from scratch. In those days, they didn’t have the convenience of pre-made sauces and I have a feeling that they wouldn’t have used pre-made sauces even if they were available then as many took pride in their own recipes without the need to consult a cookbook and there were few (if any) cooking programs or celebrity chefs to guide them.
The Warisan Village at Kuala Lumpur Big Kitchen Festival 2015 is a must-visit as it encapsulates what a traditional kitchen looked like. The entire quarter has been transformed into a village (kampong) to capture the feel of a homely kitchen, further embellished with traditional cooking utensils like clay pots, bamboo steamers and traditional charcoal stoves.
There are exhibits on ways to preserve food such as smoking meat, drying, pickling, fermenting and squeezing.
Traditional kitchen equipment are on display such as lesung kaki, lesung giling, lesung tangan, kukur kelapa, periuk Tanah, periuk tembaga, labu sayong, tempayan, nyiru, Loyang/acuan kuih muih. Looks like no one had need for a Kenwood mixer in those days. Hard work produced unforgettable food!
Adages/Old Sayings (we’ve all heard a few from our grandmothers):-
1. Do not sing in a kitchen, you’ll end up marrying an old man
2. Do not waste rice because wasted rice will weep
3. Look behind before you eat
4. Do not hit the rice pot with a ladle – it is feared that spirit of the rice may depart
5. Do not hit anyone on the head with a ladle – that person may turn into a monkey
6. Do not talk with your mouth full
7. Do not pick up food with your finger tips
8. Do not drink while eating
9. Do not eat a chicken’s end (parson’s nose) – you’ll end up being a chatterbox
10. Eating chicken’s feet makes you a resourceful person
11. Do not converse while picking chicken’s feathers, the picking will never end
12. Finish your food at one sitting
13. D0 not knock a plate against another plate
14. Do not knock a pot against a wok
15. Do not squat while pounding chili in a mortar, the chili you pound will be very hot
