May 30, 2015

Sibu Tales : Steamed Tapioca with friends

A simple get together in Kampong can meat tea or coffee with a sweet dish.

Women would get together, sitting down on the kitchen floor.Image may contain: food




I like it when my Kak or my school friends called me up to share their Minum teh with them.

Even today some ex-colleagues would organize a fun chat time in their homes and some cucur, some steamed tapioca or some cakes are placed lovingly on the table. It is real bonding time and most of all to appreciate God's blessings.

The tapioca in the photo comes from Mukah where it is grown vastly. And a former student prepared these sweet treats for tea. We had a good chat and sharing time. How God blesses us...and sometimes in magnificently simple ways.

One of the best tapioca varieties is this type called  yellow tapioca. The rough skin is a little brown, and it has a red layer between the skin and the inner root. My former student George Matthias told me that in Indonesia it is called "singkong mentaga" It is really delicious.

For a long time many Chinese in Sarawak aged between 70 and 95 could not eat tapioca because they had experience of eating a lot of tapioca during the Japanese Occupation and their aversion was "big leg disease" or beri beri.

Eating only tapioca without other vegetables and meat caused the disease because they did not have other food nutrients.

My mum love to  eat cakes made from tapioca and some steamed tapioca, with a bit of honey. She does not have any aversion or say any thing bad. She is 89 now. But she does not have all those negative words to say about tapioca. I am glad she has very few food discrimination. Children must never be brought up to look down upon natural food like tapioca, small fish,etc.

No comments:

Soh Mien on First Day of Lunar New Year

 Today 10.2.2024 is the first day of the New Lunar Year of the Dragon. Yes I have cooked the chicken and made the soh mien. Happy New Year!!...