Understanding a Culture through Food - Dinner with Shukri

howellsey — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 04:42:02 GMT

Shukri’s house rises out of the jungle. As he moves down the steps hands outstretched in greeting monkeys crash through the dense canopy above us hooting excitedly. “Welcome, welcome to my home, would you like something cold to drink...?”
Shukri tells us we are visiting the last traditionally built wooden house on Langkawi. The huge, ornate structure is situated on an auspicious site and a local medicine man has pacified troublesome local spirits. He has done his job well, as we are led around the gardens and shown many of the herbs we are to cook with later, the atmosphere of peace is broken only by the excitable monkeys and a persistent, lilting birdsong. Shukri and his assistant, immaculate in their white robes, pluck and crush aromatic leaves and offer them to us, the pungent sap still oozing from their wounds. “Now, you are hungry, yes? Ready to cook?” We nod eagerly and after removing our shoes enter the kitchen house.
Oil spits and sizzles in the pan and the air is heavy with the aroma of spice. We attend our stations and follow the meticulous instruction, sniffing, tasting, chopping and stirring under Shukri’s ever watchful eye. Beef rendang is soon perfuming the room as we are told about the marriage feasts where whole villages still come together to slaughter a buffalo or oxen and celebrate through food. As we fold banana leaves around our spice crusted fillets of fish, Shukri explains how beneath the tide of foreign tourists rural life on Langkawi goes on much as it always has done. He explains the seasonal rhythms of the paddy field and talks about traditional village life. We sip cold beer, sweat beading on our brows, as we crush peanuts for our satay and pound the dried shrimp used to make the fiery sambal which accompanies almost all Malay food.
We are led downstairs and seated at a long table underneath the stilted house. The air is cooler there, but the sounds and smells of the jungle are all around us. The food we have cooked is served to us and, as the dishes are shared around the table, I am pleasantly surprised how authentic my rendang looks, smells and tastes! As the dishes circulate Shukri tells us how a woman taking the last piece of food from a plate would, traditionally, find it hard to find a match in marriage. Ruth hesitates over the last portion of fish, I wink and flash my wedding ring and she tucks in!

My Scholarship entry - Understanding a Culture through Food

howellsey — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 05:28:11 GMT

“Tea, tea......”, the little girl appeared from nowhere as I slithered down the scree slope from the main path that led down from the High Place of Sacrifice She grabbed at my hand and pointed towards a cleft in the red, crumbling rock, “Tea, tea”, she tugged more insistently. “I don’t really like tea” I murmured but had already surrendered to this barefoot, charming urchin dressed in clothes several sizes too big for her. Seeing I was following she released my hand and skipped ahead leading me around a promontory and pointing towards a rusting, beaten up flatbed truck marooned on the sand “Tea”, she pointed towards a cave entrance hidden behind the truck in which I could see the embers of a fire being stirred into life and hear evidence of dogs and children. My tiny guide took me by the hand once more and presented me, with a final exclamation of “Tea,” to a smiling Bedouin man with a magnificent mustache.
“Sit.....”, I perched on a rock and smiled nervously as he placed a blackened kettle over the fire. Plates were produced with flatbread, pickled vegetables, some soft cheese and olives. Each dish was handed to me as my host pointed to various children and dogs naming each one in turn. I stumbled over the unfamiliar words and awkwardly began to eat. The tea was poured, the man gestured into the cave, at the thick rugs laid on the sandy floor, the transistor radio, the jerry cans of fuel, all the domestic arrangements he was obviously so proud of. He pointed at the plate “Good?”, I nodded, “Good”. He passed me a tiny, chipped glass of mouth puckeringly sweet liquid, “Tea”, he smiled proudly, “Drink....”. and I did.

Worldwide Wanderer

Understanding a Culture through Food - Dinner with Shukri

My Scholarship entry - Understanding a Culture through Food