Of Eating Pig Face, Ears and other lesser bits...

 Next to the temple or rightly, the Tua Pek Kong Temple, by the river Rajang in Sibu, there was a small mobile cart, selling Tii tou Pui or pig face, and the lower jaw or ah hiak (the jowl).

Many Foochow housewives would never be caught buying a pig face or the jowl from him or from the butchers because they were then considered the cheapest of cuts, only the very poor would eat.

However, to me these two items did really help to stretch the proverbial dollar for the budget conscious housewife. My mother would prepare them carefully from time to time and I would always remember how she would heat up the huge kuali (dui dian) to have the face scalded before taking more steps to clean up the whole chunk of meat.

To me braised pig face and the jowl are delicacies, and at the same time, they are items which clever mothers used to show their love for the family.

The special pork face is often a restaurant item on their menu.

I loved and still love the crunchy ear bits. May be it is after eating so much of the ear, I tend to be a good listener.....for after all the Chinese throughout history said "Eat the part of the pig to nourish the equivalent human part."

The Tua Pek Kong temple grounds was a good place for the wharf labourers to get a quick lunch.

The hawker was a mobile hawker as he could wheel his cart away in the afternoon, after he had sold all his food.

I remember that for only a Straits Dollar in the 50's and early 60's one could get a good slice. 

He would ask, "Chop or whole?"

In those pre plastic days, most of us would have a little container to take away. He only had plates for "dine in". Usually a lot of rice, with lots of sauce and a few slices of the cheeks. Some smart wife would give her labourer husband an egg or two for his lunch, to save cost.

The wharf labourers and other workers would sit by  the river and eat their meal. I would steal a look at them and say in my heart how lonely they were to be eating by the river side, and not with the family. But they were good men who needed to bring home hard earned money and put simple food on the table.

Braised tii tou pui and the jowl some how continue to be an extremely nostalgic kind of food for me.

They might be the cheapest cuts of meat then, but they sustained many poor families over the years!

This is my own dish of the lower cheek (or jowl) 

I salute the man who made braised tii tou pui and the jowl a take away food in those days for the poor.