Malaysian Food As a Memory AidMay I invite you to play a mnemonic game to remember names of Malaysian food?
Inspiration for This Page I am forever looking for "magic formulas" to help my little monkey improve his Bahasa Malaysia. One day, I found a website selling a survival course in Malay...A system designed to help you learn and REMEMBER 200 words within a day...? That is impressive, immediately I made up my mind to buy it! During the transaction, I was asked to pay an additional US2.50 for gift wrapping. Since I was doing shopping for myself, I naturally declined it. I had to fill the transaction form a few times though, to convince the billing web page that I didn't want the gift wrapping. Finally I won! I purchased the right to download Linkword survival course in Malay for only US8.99. The course is documented in Microsoft Word file. So I got to read about 200 basic Malay words with a scene created to remember each one of them. Wow, that is a lot of work! So that is the convenience Linkword offers, ready-made scenes for the learners. Out of respect for the author's copyright, I do not cite the contents of the course here. All I can say is, the demo version gives you a good idea how the system works. One example is imagine when you clap, a coconut falls on your head. Being an obedient student I followed the phrase faithfully by saying "clap-a" for "kelapa"...I bet I sound like an "orang putih". Ha ha ha! Then, I remember some people whom I know very well- people who know basic Malay but not enough to understand menus in Malay eateries. That, includes the boy who doesn't know sambal,grrr! Hence, I was inspired to create 10 scenes of very Malaysian food- dedicated to them. Mnemonic technique requires you to visualize the material. ( I choose a yummy material, Malaysian food!) Most of the time, you end up creating ridiculous mental pictures that somehow serves as a memory aid.
Let's begin with Malaysian food - rice 1. Lemang -A classic Malaysian food made of glutinous rice with coconut milk baked in bamboo trunks. The species of bamboo used is also called " buluh lemang". Now play this scene in your mind as you piLE MANGo and rice into a bamboo trunk. Close your eyes for a while and try to make this image as vivid as possible. Visualize this way for each new word. 2.Ketupat- Traditionally, it is rice cooked in a packet of woven coconut leaves. It is a must for me when I eat satays. Take "ch" away from KETchUP AT a rice stall.
-------------------------------------- Malaysian Food- meat 3.Rendang-Meat cooked with coconut milk and curry spices until dry. Taste even better with fried grated coconut. For me, this is a clever idea to turn old tough chicken into a delicious main dish. The other ingredients for rendang are beef, lamb, liver and even clams! Imagine BRENDA-"N"-Gina love to cook dry meat curry. 4.Soto-Refers to a soup served with meat, vegetables and rice or noodles. My favourite combination is thick beef bone soup, bean sprouts, beef tendons and rice noodles. My ritual before slurping soto is: squeeze juice of half a lime, some black soya sauce and hot chillie sauce. It's a SOrT-Of thick bone noodle soup. 5.Sate-Resembles kebabs without vegetables. The meat is weaved onto small wooden skewers ( made of ribs of coconut palms ). My favourite sate is lamb and intestines called "sate perut". It's difficult to get sate perut which is not bitter or tough in my city, though. Anyway, all of uS-ATE lots of Malay kebabs. We can't help it... 6. Kuah Sate - I have to squeeze in the peanut dipping sauce here because Sate and Kuah Sate are inseparable. Kuah sate is made of ground peanuts, belacan,coconut milk, dried chilie,tamarind,garlic, shallots,spices and seasonings. I have tasted other versions of peanut sauce such as the Javanese and Surinamese styles, but somehow I prefer the Malaysian style. CucKOO-WHAt a peanut sauce!
7. Tempoyak - Basically it is fermented durian paste, added with salt and sugar. Most folks like to cook it with fish, sambal and curry but I like it simply fried with garlic and shallots, that is enough to make me eat three helpings of rice! Slow TEMPO for YAK that preserves durians. 8. Belacan - Simply put, shrimp paste Malay version. To make belacan, tiny fresh shrimps are mashed and buried to ferment for several months. Then they are dug out, fried and hard-pressed. The belacan cakes in the market are hard and dark brown in colour. Usually I cut them into smaller chunks and toast lightly in the wok. Hmmm the aroma of belacan. BELoved shrimp paste in A CAN. 9. Cencaluk - The tiny shrimps for making belacan is also used to make cencaluk. To me, cencaluk is the wet version of belacan. Salt and rice are mixed with the shrimps, sealed in a large earthen jar to ferment for three days. Then it is ready to be eaten with your rice, made into a simple salad or fried with egg! CHURN not CHAR to LOOK for tiny shrimps in brine. ------------------------------------------------------------------
10. Serunding -It is basically a dish of grated coconut fried with spices and seasonings. When it's plain it is serunding kelapa. You add chicken, it becomes serunding ayam. The other varieties are beef, fish and dried prawns. For me, serunding kelapa wrapped inside glutinous rice is a great tea time snack. So it's just rice SURroUNDING coconut. --------------------------------------
2. Comprehension stimulates your memory. That's why I describe each food item. 3. Review, review, review! You can forget 8 out of 10 Malaysian food listed here within 24 hours. Do a brief review after the first study, then tomorrow, next week or even next month.
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