Christmas in Taiping (2)
I’ve never appreciated roast turkey with all the trimmings. I find it bland and lacking in celebratory festiveness. I am especially not fond of brussel sprouts! So the traditional Christmas meal is a bit of an ordeal for me. Which is not to say I don’t like turkey as such. We often eat turkey steak or turkey escalope or diced turkey throughout the year - but cooked with wine Italian-style or soy sauce or curry Asian-style.
The problem with the traditional roast turkey meal for me is that when I was a child in Malaysia, Christmas food was just so much more - more tasty, more spicy, more varied, more exciting. We would spend Christmas with my grandparents in Taiping and the preparations would start weeks in advance. As a child, I never was aware of all the effort and hard work that Grandma put into it - with the help of all the aunties, great-aunties, cousins and second cousins all over Taiping. But everyone in the large extended family would have got involved in the vast cooking marathon that would have been needed to lay on the feast that fed over a hundred people.
In the heat of the tropics, we would have a full-blown Christian Christmas, complete with tree, Santa and carols.
The kids’ job was to decorate the house. The older second cousins would be in charge - tall, good-looking Paul who seemed so grown up to us and broad-shouldered, grinning Jason. They would be the ones up the ladders stringing the paper chains, placing the balls on the higher reaches of the Christmas tree. We younger kids would drape tinsel on the lower branches of the tree, balance cards on shelves.
On the day of the big party itself, the living room would be cleared and chairs set out for the carol service. There would be a churchful of people in there, singing our hearts out. One of the fat great-uncles would always dress up as Santa in the red suit and jolly mask, arriving at the end of the service when the lights went out. He would have a sack full of presents and ho-ho-ho his way round the room, scaring the babies with the strange staring mask.
But when it came to the food, we celebrated Malaysian-style - with curries and spicy fried dishes, rice and satay: and enough to feed an army. Memories of delicious Asia will always be associated with festivities and celebration for me so a pallid turkey for Christmas, no matter how moist you might claim it is or how Christmas-y just does not do it for me at all.
What are your memories of childhood Christmases? Please add a comment and let me know!
Photo: thanks to Mr_Woo from flickr.com (CCL)
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Wed, January 9th, 2008 - Author
Yang-May Ooi - Category
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January 9th, 2008 at 11:27 pm
I never liked turkey either for Christmas as is the custom of my husband’s Irish family in Dublin. When I was growing up it was full on Swedish fare. My grandmother would lay out a smörgåsbord on a table that was 15 feet long. She was only cooking for 30 or so. But there was kurv sausage which is served steaming hot and is white and eaten with spicy cold horseradish. A dish called Sill which is herring in wine sauce. Then many many small dishes too of onions and cranberry and all sorts of vegetable concoctions, kohldomers - good those were good- meat dumplings wrapped in cabage leaf and steamed so that you get the sweetness of the cabbage and the savoriness of the meet.
And then the deserts starting with torta cake which is layers of sponge cake, custard, meringue, fresh berries and cream. More dishes than I could count. It really was a lovely table and my grandmother who had gone to professional cooking school was a fabulous cook.
And of course there would be a ham with gravy but truly that was the least of it.
January 9th, 2008 at 11:55 pm
Mmm, Kathryn, that sounds yum. I’ve never known before what a Swedish Xmas meal would be like so thanks for sharing your family’s menu! How fortunate to have a professional chef for your grandma - an image of Babette’s Feast flashed into my mind when I read that part…