Quote:
Originally Posted by DC.
snip
I love your stories, DC. Thanks!
Oh... It's just me reminiscing & remembering the good old days... & perhaps
give you folks here a little cultural info & also an idea of how things were
not so long ago.
Pedas in Malay means hot/spicy & i don't know if it means the same in
Filipino... if it's any help.
Looking at a Tagalog dictionary, doesn't seem like it means that in
Filipino. Though, I wouldn't be surprised if it was so in some other of
the
many Filipino languages...
Yes i was thinking about that too, i don't know Tagalog at all except for a
few words but i was thinking maybe the people living further south (Palawan
& Sulu Sea) nearer to East Malaysia & Borneo/Indonesia.
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I think I'm born to love the Malaysian cuisine to death, but I have very
little experience in it, unfortunately.... But the more I read about it,
the better it gets. I'll need to head out there sometime.
Well there's basically a 'modern' malay cuisine & a 'traditional' although
some would argue as being only one. I think there's definetely 2, a modern
city fare & a traditional 'kampong'/village fare. Also the further out you
are in the country, you'll discover ingenious cooking methods & foodstuff.
And in certain areas, a strong Arab influence or a strong
Minangkerbau/Sumatran/Indonesian influence. and in the North you'll get Thai
influences. That's just in Peninsular Malaysia. East Malaysia on the island
of Borneo is different again. There's influences from the local native
tribes & when you cross into Indonesia with it's 13,000 islands + many
different 'tribes', well... that's where it gets interesting. Indonesian &
Malaysian cuisines are quite similar as they share same basic ingredients
like rice, coconut & certain spices.
Yes you'll need to head out there sometime to really appreciate it. I
occasionally find the food in the city a little bland while in the country,
you might be having jungle fodder like young wild fern tips, fried river
fish, fresh water prawns, jungle fowl etc. It's making the best from the
land & is always different.
DC.
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Greetings brothers and sisters,
Sir DC, we seem to have a similar culture with Malays and other inland Bornean people in terms of foodstuff and language similarities. Though we Kapampangan people live up north in the Philippines (Pampanga province) we had a pre-Hispanic historical ties with the Sultanate of Brunei, Java and other ancient Sultanates in Malaysia...So it is through ancient trade and diplomatic ties we had shared these...
Pedas in Malay means hot/spicy & i don't know if it means the same in
Filipino... if it's any help.
In our language, spicy and hot is called "Paras" and I doubt it was pronounced 'Padas' before because we interchange the consonants "D" and "R" resepctively. Throughout our country, we are the only ethnic who call cooked rice "Nasi."
I think ikan bilis simply means 'little fish'. I know it chiefly as
sambal ikan bilis, the anchovy relish served alongside nasi lemak.
The dried anchovies are soaked, fried, mixed with ginger, shallots,
balacan,tamarind (&salt &sugar)and sauteed with onions.
I see the potential for the use of these salt packed ziganids as a
substitution for the dried anchovies. They're about the same size...
We call Ikan Bilis, or the anchovies as "Asan Diris" They can be bought fresh and can be mixed with flour and egg and made as patties. Some are dried to be made as a form of flavoring for bean soup and that with an inch in length are fried crisp with chilli powder and sugar and is made as a finger food when drinking beer.
Yes you'll need to head out there sometime to really appreciate it. I
occasionally find the food in the city a little bland while in the country,
you might be having jungle fodder like young wild fern tips, fried river
fish, fresh water prawns, jungle fowl etc. It's making the best from the
land & is always different.
The food you mention, are also widely eaten in our place, especially those young fern tips that can be made with delicious fresh salad, while the older leaves are dried to make a beverage like tea...
Cheers!