Nang Chong Stories : Tapah Fish

Eating a slice or two of steamed tapah would always reminds me of 
my maternal grandmother's life in Nang Chong. How blessed we were!!

The Nang Chong area in Sibu was criss crossed by small streams which flow into the Rajang. Many village houses which dot along these streams would also created their own irrigation canals, often only 6 feet wide and 6 feet deep and for the length of their titled land into the inland side. My grandmother's house thus had two of these canals which ran parallel to each other along the periphery of that piece of padi land cum house. 

The canals dug by my grandfather and his relatives before they started planting padi (and even before building the house) brought in river water  when the river was high. The land was well drained during low tide.

I loved to see the river at its highest level because I could see the water flowing into the padi fields. This would bring fertile mud to the rice when the water subsided. Insects and pests would be killed. So very little pesticides were used and probably it was unheard of at that time. My grandfather and uncles only used a bit of LOI LING JING (tuba juices) to kill of insects and mosquitoes.

When the water level was even higher, the precious water was used for all sorts of washing and cleaning. The clean water at the highest tide level would be carried by bucketfuls and poured into the waiting diesel drums.

When our diesel drums were filled with clean and clear water, how rich we felt!

My third uncle had made a movable netting gate for the canal runnig out towards the jetty. When the tide was high, he would lower the wire netting gate. Fish would swim freely into the canal. When the tide ebbed, there would be some fish trapped at the bottom of the wire trap. 

A few precious fish could be trapped. My grandmother would be so happy to get a small tapah of 2 or 3 kilos. There were other fish too like Red Eye fish, ikan sembilan, ikan baong etc.

Our Foochow way of preparing tapah then was simple, steam the tapah steaks with just soy sauce and some fried onions and ginger. Pour a bit of home made red rice wine before serving. The fish then was memorably sweet. 

After the express boats damaged the land along the banks of the Rajang, we no longer could enjoy God's blessings. We started to have to buy every fish we wanted to eat.

By then my uncle was old and in fact the eldest uncle had already moved to Sibu.

This is part of my childhood memory of life in the village of Nang Chong.