Colors o f Malaysia (part2)

This is “Colors of Malaysia” part 2. In this part 2, I am going to talk about Malaysian Food and Malaysian signature drink, Teh Tarik.

In my opinion, when we talk about some country’s culture, it cannot be far from their traditional food.

There are lots of controversies about Malaysian food too (between Malaysia and Singapore, between Malaysia and Indonesia). I think the reason is their location adjacent. So it is easy to influence each other and it is easy for the nomad to bring their original tradition (food) to their new place.

To be honest, I thought that Malaysia ‘steal’ from other countries such as Indonesia, Singapore, China, Thailand, etc. Malaysia doesn’t have their own traditional food.  

But since I live here and I got to know Malaysian, I changed my mind. I think Malaysia is very unique because they can adapt from other countries’ food, to their own way.

For example is satay, satay is from Indonesia, but Malaysia can make it to satay celup. Still using ‘satay’ word, but it is totally different from Indonesian’s satay. Indonesian’s satay is grilled, satay celup is using semi-cooked ingredients, which, are dunked, into a boiling pot of diluted satay sauce.

Chicken rice is one of the controversial foods. Malaysia and Singapore were fighting about where this food came from. Some people said it is Malaysian food and some people said it is Singaporean food.  Some day, I heard my friend (local) said that chicken rice might be from Singapore, but chicken rice ball is pure from Malaysia.

There are still lots of Malaysian food that I haven’t tried before, such as Baba-Nyonya food, Nasi Kerabu, Mi Kolok, Sarawak Laksa, etc. I hope in this 2 years period of time, I get a chance to try all the Malaysian unique food, that I cannot find it in other country. And some of the food, they can improve and make it adaptable, such as the famous nasi lemak. Chinese-Malay can make it adaptable in their own way, they match it with pork curry (the normal nasi lemak is halal).

On top of that, Malaysia has one famous drink, if you hear someone mention it, straight away will remain you to Malaysia. This drink is called Teh Tarik. This drink is a mixture from black tea and condensed milk. This drink becomes unique because of the pulling process during preparation. We can see that, there is showmanship in this preparation. We can find this drink anywhere in Mamak Stall, even in fine-dining restaurants, because this is signature drink in Malaysia.

Besides food and drink, Malaysia still has another ‘color’ that we can find it in other places than Kuala Lumpur area.  Such as Malaysian traditional house, every state has different Rumah Melayu (Rumah Meayu Melaka, Rumah Melayu Perak, etc.) And I believe that Malaysia has some building that influenced by British, since British had colonized Malaysia. Same like Indonesia that had colonized by Dutch, Indonesia also has building / museum with Dutch influenced.