Father and Terubok

 

It is always such a happy sight to have in the fish market to see a beautiful and fresh ikan terubok.

Chiek Kerk or Terubok is a very sweet but boney fish and it is not every one's kind of fish. However I was brought up to love terubok in the 1950's in Sibu. And we often had terubok - steasmed, fried crispy, or grilled on our special steel plate fitted on our Foochow stove.

It is now at an unaffordable pirce of RM 80 per kg. But photographing one of this size (almost 90 ringgit) makes me remember the days when my parents and all of us were so much younger enjoying the sweetness of the steamed fish.

My father "taught good moral lessons at dinner time".

Here is the lesson from my father : life is full of challenges like fish bones of terubok. Know how to eat the humble fish (then at only 1 ringgit each), carefully use the tongue to feel for the bones, spit out the bones and enjoy the sweetness.

He told us to be patient when eating, and use our chopsticks or fingers pull out the bones from our mouth. It was quite an art!! That's the only way to enjoy a steamed terubok. However if the terubok was deep fried, even the bones could be chewed and swallowed. It might sound unbelievable to foreigners.

Furthermore, my mother frugal would also use a deep bowl to steam the fish so that we had a lot of the gingerly sauce to eat our rice with....

The fish sauce was memorable!!