Sibu Tales : kek cher

My mother and her neigbhours in Brooke Drive had small backyard gardens and one of the most popular vegetables they grew was the ketola or petola. In those days we called this vegetable kerk cher or chern moh. It was very much later when I went to do some work in Chongqin that I learned its new and lovely name, the silk gourd.

In Chongqin, the silk gourd was shredded and add to the making of porridge together with any corn from the cob in the summer. The people there believe that this porridge would be very cooling for the heaty summer days. Indeed I had a lot of porridge in Chongqing.





The Foochows love this vegetable and we cook it in many different ways, as soups, as a stir fry but it is best cooked with eggs.

Many people do not eat this vegetable because they say that it smells too much of soil and others say it is too cooling. Again it is a dialectic preference. I suppose we Foochows are hardier people.

Interestingly the gourd has to be peeled with a scraper (sometimes made with just a thick tin plate) and then cut in a slant. According to my mother it is the best way to enjoy the vegetable and its inner parts. We must however know how to choose the vegetable by looking at the skin. If it is too old, then the skin becomes too thick.

My mother would sigh and say, " What a thick skin, and nothing inside to eat..."