That thing you eat
Clarence asked me about Malaysian food. His question reminded me of something an American friend once said to me: "I never realised that you'd eat Chinese food all the time because you're Chinese!" LOL
Growing up, the number one thing I remember is how organised Mom always was when it came to preparing meals. She always had just enough, not too much and not too little.
"Only two pieces of chicken each," she'd warn us kids. "And four fishballs each, in the soup." I'm still wondering if ours was the only household where food was sort of "rationed". No food was ever wasted, and we didn't have any opportunity to over-eat either! ("Gluttony is a sin," Mom would reproof, when we complained.)
Dad had a thing about us not eating too much protein, so we always had one meat dish and two vegetable dishes to go with our rice for dinner. "Here, eat more vegetables for your 'big one'," was a common refrain at the dinner table, since consumption of fibres is supposed to aid bowel movements. That's what happens when you grow up in a doctor's family — natural bodily functions are spoken of in a matter-of-fact tone at the dinner table. I never realised how weird that is until two seconds ago when I was writing it out. Eww.
As far as traditional dishes go, each Chinese dialect group has its own specialties. One of Dad's is the mee suah, a type of noodle that is pulled very long and thin, cooked with homemade rice wine soup and ginger. This is so far the ONLY traditional dish from Dad's dialect group that I like. The Chinese often throw birthday dinners for their elderly parents who turn 70, 80 and 90 years old, gathering all the relatives to celebrate; mee suah is always on the dinner menu at these gatherings because the long noodles symbolise long life, just like fish is always on every Chinese dinner menu because it symbolises prosperity. (The word for "fish" in Chinese sounds similar to the word for "prosperity".)
When I was down with flu two weeks ago and bent on taking "soupy noodles" for every meal, it came upon me that the Chinese have quite a few different types of noodles and about a zillion ways of cooking them. You could never, ever, get bored of eating only noodles. I'd much rather have noodles than rice, which makes me really weird because rice is the staple food around here!
Since leaving home, though, I eat more fast food than anything else, simply because it's convenient and their restaurants have air-conditioning (yes, I'm such a "puteri lilin"! — a Malay phrase to describe someone who wilts in the heat). It's funny how, back at home, going to Kentucky Fried Chicken was actually considered a treat. My parents thought it unnecessarily expensive, you see. But here we happily hang out at McDonald's or pop over to Burger King without a second thought. It's a totally different lifestyle.
In the same way, although I always had breakfast when I was at home, I almost never eat breakfast now. Mornings are always a total rush for me because, in case you hadn't noticed, I'm not a morning person. I wake up as late as I possibly can and then dash to get ready and get out of the house. Mom would be scandalised. "Breakfast is the most important meal of the day!" I can hear her saying right now...