The long and square or even round, a good Malay girl or boy has been taught to make ketupat since young for the puasa month especially. Mothers would be busy cooking for visitors who come to have a buka puasa meal together to celebrate solidarity, family unity and their strong faith.
The ketupat is a symbol of celebration and is a great iconic item in Sarawak Malay social history.
My special story associated with ketupat is related to my family. One Christmas our dinner was well prepared and as we gathered to say our grace, the head of the family, being a rice eater, suddenly pointed out to our Western Dinner and asked for rice!!
I had not really wanted to cook rice since we had mashed potatoes, two salads,and a few other side dishes and a fantastic stuffed turkey.
And furthermore we already had a nice platter of mee hoon,a Just In Case dish (if an unexpected guest appeared) bought from a restaurant.
So for the man of the house, rice it must be!!
But God was provident. Just as I was about to go and cook rice, there was a knock at our door, which also made us realise that we had not closed our gate!!
Who but our faithful former amah Aminah (who had not been working for a while as she was ill). She came with 10 ketupat and a pot of curry for our Christmas!!
Bless her good heart. We also knew that she would not stay for dinner as we were not having a halal meal.We had been exchanging gifts from the time she started working for us. But that Christmas her gift was very memorable and very special.
From that day onwards, we believe strongly that God answers prayers in many special ways. And we had enough food for several days.
2 comments:
I dont quite like keputat compared with rice because it is very compact while rice is loose which makes it nicer. Despite the peanut gravy.
kids in Singapore are taught to weave the ketupat casing.
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