More than 50 years ago my Grand Aunt was curious , as a kindergarten teacher, about what the little kiddies talked about. One day she heard my little cousin talking about his grandmother cooking Flower Porridge and she was all intrigued.
A few months later her curiosity got the better of her and she had to ask my aunt about flower porridge as she had never heard any one in Sibu cooking it.
Now the Foochows in those days ate several kinds of mormal porridge.
On hot days our pioneering grandparents would cook green beans and rice porridge or just red bean soup.
My maternal grandmother was fond of red bean soup, as a snack or as a home remedy to lower body temperature during the time when doctors were non-existent. Red bean soup was frequently cooked, almost once a week as my mother remembered it. In those days red beans were very affordable at 5 cents a kati.
Another kind of porridge was peanut and rice porridge.
A third one was sweet potato and rice porridge.
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| Flower Porridge *green beans, barley and rice porridge |
Therefore my grand aunt had to get to the bottom of this flower porridge. A recount of it would make any one laugh for out of the mouths of babes you do get the funniest tales!!
My cousins would remember eating their grandmother's green bean and rice porridge. Their grandmother would prepare early in the morning green beans in the pot. When the green beans started to open up, she would call out to the children that the Bean Flowers were opening up! She would happily call the children to look at the lovely sight.
Then she would add a tin of rice to the bean soup and by afternoon and evening they would have a large pot of green bean and rice porridge.
To my aunt, this was really a very good way of keeping body temperatures down. She told us that perhaps this grandmother's recipe kept all her children healthy and away from fevers and even running nose.
My aunt said that she was always very sensitive whenever she saw children with running nose. And to prevent her children from getting running nose, she would follow her mother-in-law's way of cooking the Green Bean Flower Porridge. When her children saw the green and white porridge she would tell them that it was green beans opening up like flowers in the soft rice and it was good for them.
When her youngest son was in Kindergarten, he told the Kindergarten teacher, my grand aunt, how great a cook his grandmother was. And he liked "Flower Porridge".
That was how the story of "flower porridge" become famous for a while and teachers and mothers would share a good laugh.
Do you have any memorable kindergarten story?
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