The belt fish was one of the cheapest fish available in Sibu in the 60's and 70's and most people would sneeze at it, calling it "Poor Man's Fish". But to us children who were not exposed to this kind of snobbery at that time, we gobbled up every piece of belt fish in front of us. My mum would swallow a lot of the bitterness in life as a widow and she would not repeat what other people say to us. She kept her counsel and made us study hard and be thankful of what we had on the table. There was never a time when we had no food on the table.
My mother would buy the whole fish for probably one dollar and the fish would last three days or more!! She would first carefully deep fry the fish. A few pieces would be placed on the table for lunch and dinner and the remainders put in a glass bottle. The next day she would cook us our favourite fish dish - fish with black soy sauce. This sweet fish dish would be so fragrant and flavourful and we would enjoy the sauce. What a rice pusher!
But most remarkably, as if by magic, on the third day, the remainder of black sauced fish would be steamed and we could even chew the softened bones.
Whatever fish we had left in the big bottle would be presented to us again, but we were happy with this fish because it is so tasty. Sometimes, the fish would just be heated up and we would enjoy the crunchiness of the skin and fresh. Leftovers never tasted so good!!
That was how we were brought up to value every single morsel of food on the table by our remarkable, awesome, innovative, creative and resourceful mother.
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