I was nine years old when British North Borneo became independent and joined the Federation of Malaysia. Of course I remembered nothing of the event nor was I aware that I lived in a colony. My paternal grandfather came to North Borneo in the waves of migration when the British encouraged Chinese labour to help build the colony. It would have been similar beginnings from my mother’s side. While my childhood memories are sketchy the things I remember most are mainly to do with food. As the tuans and mems (or sahibs and memsahibs in India) were indulging in their colonial-hybrid cuisine of curries, mulligatawny, chicken countrycaptain, pishpash, kedgeree and-the-like we the colonized ate foods from our respective ethnic and racial groups. It was years or decades later that we sampled the diverse cuisines outside of our own which the multicultural community offered. Today of course urban Malaysians and other urban-people worldwide are exposed to cuisines from all corners of the earth.
I remember trekking to my aunt and uncle’s rubber plantation in Sandakan to pick rambutans that were grown among the rubber trees. In my child’s mind that was an expedition to the vast jungle over exciting terrain, but, in truth it must have been a smallholding excavated from primary forests. In 1877 Sir Henry Wickham had smuggled out-of Brazil 70,000 rubber seeds to Britain. The agricultural race was on, to produce rubber from the latex of rubber trees in the colonies. I remember every Chinese New Year my uncle and aunt would steam the sticky new-year cake over a large cauldron. When it has become firm and pliable for new year they would slice the huge cake with a length of wire.
I remember attending Hakka weddings in the countryside where rickety tables were set up in the open, heavily laden with the most delicious festive dishes. There was succulent white chicken meat that was poached in abalone soup. Men carrying buckets of this soup would come to each table and ladled it out. There was crispy skinned roast chicken with seasoned salt to dip in. There was black velvety mushroom stew that had been simmered for hours with fatty pork. There were deep fried prawn fritters. Prawn crackers were a child’s delight. There was duck in sour plum sauce. I remember Sunday mornings after mass we would go to the Sandakan upstairs market and had the best breakfast of cuttlefish in a rich brown sauce served over kangkung. Another just as delicious alternative is wonton noodle soup. Was it 50 cents a bowl? There was not a colonial in sight! At the tuckshop of the Catholic primary school run by British Franciscan nuns, were meals and snacks both so delicious and nutritious they would delight Jamie Oliver. There were crispy pancakes made with shrimp and spring onions; grilled dried squid spiced with fiery chilli, fried noodles, sweet potato puffs with bean paste, banana fritters, all cooked on site by the tuckshop lady.
Fast forward a few decades. In between I lived Tanzania, returning to Malaysia to have a baby, then lived in Germany and England. Back to Africa, this time to the Sudan. My husband’s work took us to Indonesia; his other postings that followed were to Azerbaijan, East Timor and Serbia. Each new country visited meant introduction to new cuisines – dishes that are entirely new and foreign and dishes that have parallels with other cultures. We finally settled in Australia in 1992. In 2011 I had my history PhD thesis (The University of Western Australia) published by Routledge, entitled: Food Culture in Colonial Asia: A Taste of Empire.
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