The comfort foods that we all yearn for

WHEN was the last time that you had a yearning or an urge to have your favourite comfort food? Some dish or special family recipe or just something that is plain and simple, which would take you back to that ‘Ratatouille’ moment as depicted in that famous 2007 Disney/Pixar animated movie?

Who can ever forget that scene when that fearsome food critic had tasted his first mouthful of that special moment, which had sent him magically back to his mother’s cooking as a young boy?

We all have our own personal moments like that as well; it could be a special family secret recipe passed down through the generations, or simply something out of a can with the exact same brand and place or origin.

It need not be costly, neither should it be rare or hard to come by, our comfort foods can be enjoyed either on very special occasions or on a daily basis – it is all up to us.

Often our childhood memories would trigger our taste buds and our longing for what is universally known as ‘comfort foods’.

We would start to cultivate our very own personal preferences among the myriad different foods that we encounter from around age five or six; research has shown that for most people, vivid memories of the past only begin at that age.

What did our parents (usually our mothers or grannies) cook for us? What foods were we exposed to first at our school canteens, or at other folks’ homes and outside in the coffee shops and other eateries?

(Although truth be told, it was only after the 1970s that the coffee shop culture had started to proliferate in Kuching.)

I remember as a boy growing up in the mid-1950s, our basic breakfast at home would involve soft-boiled eggs and white bread with either butter (which came in the Golden Churn tins) or ‘kaya’ (coconut milk custard spread) or jam; cream crackers and ‘moi’ (rice porridge) were popular too, with side condiments of scrambled soya-sauced eggs, Bovril and the occasional canned food (sardines, luncheon meat or Kraft cheddar cheese).

I had a younger cousin who had survived his entire childhood on ‘moi’ and cheese or peanut butter! Amazingly, he did surprisingly well and is today working for an international security firm in Canada.

As we grew older and into our teens, our taste buds had also matured with us and our range and tolerance or taste for more ‘exotic’ or ‘multi-ingredients’ foods, blended or cooked with herbs, spices and more unusual ingredients, would begin to take hold of our more discerning palates.

In a large family like ours, it was the tradition that during a grand festival day, Grandpa Ong Kwan Hin would request his eight daughters-in-laws and two married daughters to prepare and serve a special dish each for the grand family dinner.

Over the years (this tradition started in the 1950s and continued till the late 1970s), I had weaned my palate to at least 10 different scrumptious dishes prepared for this festival.

They had included my very early introduction to such dishes as ‘Red-Faced Duck with Salted Vegetables, Sour Plums and Tomatoes’, ‘Fish Maws with Abalone’, ‘Round Cabbage In Bone-Marrow Soup’, ‘Kidney, Liver, Spleen and Fillet Pork in Ginger and Wine’, ‘Peranakan Nyonya Chap Cai (Mixed Vegetables) with Black Fungus, Beancurd Skin, Dried Mushrooms, Dried Lily Flower Buds and Tanghoon (Glass Noodles) in a Light Soy Sauce with Minced Pork Meatballs’; and a few more.

Seventy years later, we still prepare some of these favourite dishes for grand occasions like the Chinese New Year’s Eve reunion dinner, but with the convenience of being able to obtain all these ingredients easily, we can cook them whenever we feel the yearning or urge, which is pretty often.

I had seen The Borneo Post editor Ghaz Ghazali’s post on Facebook just last week – and it inspired this week’s column – about him enjoying a variation of a Nyonya dish that we had also loved growing up: his Mum called it ‘Sayur Tanghoon Foochook’, and he had described it lovingly thus: “For as long as I remember, I have known and truly enjoyed this ‘lauk’ (Americans call ‘em ‘sides’) – a basic mix of glass noodles, dried black mushrooms, the black fungus, ‘foochook’ (beancurd sticks), dried lily buds and dried shrimps, and I believe all five of these are a must in this dish, regardless of the variations.

“I also believe this dish originated in Chinese cooking, but I have had it the Semenanjung (Peninsular) Malay style, with coconut milk as the gravy and some even put ‘tauge’ (bean sprouts) and ‘tempe’ (fermented soybean cakes) in; still, the five basic items are there.

“This ‘lauk’ is, to me, a local heritage, so local that almost always at supermarkets here (Kuching), usually on the spices/condiments aisles, you’d find packs of these five ingredients, each pre-prepped for cooking a serving portion!

“The matriarchs in my family and many of the households I have known all my life, have all prepared it, and I have loved it forever.”

Courtesy of Ghaz, I am sharing here a photo of his mother’s ‘Sayur Tanghoon Foochook’, together with my own Nyonya version of ‘Chap Cai’ as cooked by my wife when we were in Zurich in June 2023.

Another universally-loved comfort food among Asians is the perennial porridge or gruel (‘moi’ in Hokkien) – just plain cooked rice in a more fluid and liquid form, accompanied by as many condiments and ‘sides’ as one wishes.

For many, it is a form of a ‘recovery-from-illness’ light meal as typically some would find it less ‘filling’ than normal rice; or as my son would always associate it with an aversion of it being ‘what you eat when you’re sick’!

As one grows older with age, one begins to appreciate it more, as it is actually lighter on the stomach, easier to digest, and with a declining appetite a perfect solution for seniors and those happy to not mess up the kitchen.

Why, you may ask. It is easy to prepare, and it cooks over an open fire, or in a regular rice cooker (just set it to porridge). Ensure that you fill in with double or more of the normal water measurement you would for rice.

Everything else can be opened from a can, defrosted from the freezer or microwaved from the fridge. You can just buy your cooked, prepared ‘sides’ from your favourite local fast-food stalls or supermarkets.

As for preparing the ‘sides’ or condiments for any porridge meal, just crack open a couple of eggs, fry them whatever style you prefer (personally in our family, they are either scrambled eggs in Bovril or soy-sauce or with Chinese sausages and sliced onions); a can of pickled lettuce from China; some sardines mixed with either chillies or onions; deep-fried ‘ikan bilis’ (dried anchovies); a couple of cubes of fermented tofu; some prawn or anchovies sambal from Yeo’s; either corned beef or luncheon meat from a can – and you’re in for a feast!

If you love your vegetables, just stir-fry some’ kangkong’ (water spinach), ‘sawi’ (mustard greens), regular spinach or curly veggies in a light minced garlic sauce or with sliced chillies and soy sauce and ‘Voila’, you’re set!

Similarly with seafood – just deep-fry a slice or two of Spanish mackerel or quick-boil some shrimps or prawns or cuttlefish.

Towards the latter part of the 1960s and going into the 1970s when imported foodstuffs became more available and prices were reasonable, the taste for comfort foods had changed somewhat in our family.

We were then exposed to imported cans of Campbell’s soups; Heinz baked beans and chicken frankfurters (urgh!) and ham from Australia, frozen green peas and mixed vegetables, as well as chilled sliced cheese, yogurt and UHT milk.

Heck! Once a year, we even had our USA young turkeys and our Christmas fruitcakes in tins as well as legs of gammon ham!

Our dishes during meal times gradually changed; added on to the typical deep-fried mackerel in curry powder and ginger chicken dishes would be either ABC Soup with macaroni pasta in chicken broth, or Campbell’s cream of mushroom soup.

There would also be corned beef from Imperial or Libby’s; luncheon meats from Denmark or China; and even canned Irish stews and oxtail soups and Italian minestrone.

Up till this day one of our family favourites is what we call ‘Ahmah’s Soup’, after my Mum who loves making it and we have always enjoyed it.

It is a very simple concoction of potatoes, carrots and big onions with either chicken or pork-ribs in a soup, slowly boiled and simmered to perfection every time.

For variety, she would sometimes do variations with added celery or corn or anything else she could think of. It would always be served topped with a garnishing of deep-fried shallots and chopped fresh coriander leaves.

Yummy!

Most of this generation’s idea of ‘comfort food’ would certainly be a world apart from ours – they have been brought up in a world of ‘Ramly’ burgers; KFCs and McD’s, as well as ‘laksa’, ‘kolo mee’.

In a way, it was rather sad because their elders had either stopped the habit of cooking at home for them, or they were always busy making a life for themselves – on the move, grab your bites wherever and whenever you could, as long as there was food to fill their hungry stomachs, they would be fine with it.

The comfort foods that my generation had grown up with and enjoyed and that we now look back with affection and yearning, would in time to come fade away and die a slow death in the annals of the local culinary scene pertaining to the very unique cuisine of the country at the end of the 20th century.

Bon appétit to all!