POSTING #107

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To Malaysia with Love

In Posting #104  I told about visiting a casino in Malaysia's Genting Highland in 1992 while I was conducting a training course for senior managers of that country's employment service.

During an advance visit to plan the course, my Malaysian contacts and I agreed that the final dinner of the two-week course should be special. It should offer foods from the three ethnic groups that make up Malaysia, the native Malays, the Chinese and the Indians.

The Malaysians suggested that there should also be a typically Canadian dish. I agreed.

When I got back to Canada from the planning trip, Pat and I tried to decide which 'Canadian' dish we would offer.

Leaving poutine aside, there was not a great choice.

As a digression, some of us make fun of poutine because of its grayish gravy of unknown origin and its gummy cheese, but the chefs in one of  Niagara-on-the-Lake's best winery restaurants have drawn inspiration from the humble dish and are now offering a lunchtime poutine dish made of fries (of course) covered with a lobster sauce full of generous chunks of lobster, with a topping of  broiled old Canadian cheddar and fresh cheese curds. A fussy friend said it was wonderful!

Back to business!

When I was still with the Federal Government I sometimes had to help plan the menus for banquets at which foreign VIP would be honoured. We wanted to offer them a unique Canadian culinary experience but soon found that the distinctively Canadian foods boiled down to Arctic Char, Winnipeg Goldeyes, Fiddle Heads, and Maple Syrup.

Slim pickings!

As I remember them, the meals were never very good. They were Canadian, but they were boring.

Could Pat and I come up with something better for our Malaysian friends?

The dish had to be something we could carry on the plane to Malaysia, which ruled out Arctic Char, Goldeyes and Fiddleheads and it couldn't contain any pork products.

After a great deal of thought, we had an outside-the-box idea.

Butter tarts---the treat that is not found anywhere else in the world!

The idea of butter tarts had a special appeal to me because Kenilworth, a tiny hamlet a few miles north of my home town of Arthur, seems to have declared itself the spiritual capital of butter tarts. Every so often Kenilworth has a butter tart festival and enthusiasts from across Canada and from some enlightened pockets in the US make a pilgrimage to this butter tart Mecca. When the festival is not on, the hamlet organizes a Butter Tart Trail Tour (now there's alliteration for you) that lets tart lovers sample the best of Canadian tarts from different communities in North Wellington.

We decided that we would carry two pounds of vegetable shortening (no lard) with us to Malaysia. Pat would then buy the other ingredients in a market and try to sweet-talk the pastry chef at our hotel into letting her use  part of his kitchen to make tarts for the special dinner.

The choice of a recipe could have been problematic.

Lovers of butter tarts can all agree that the pastry has to be flaky and the filling has to come to just below the top of the pastry shell---nothing worse than leathery pastry or a skimpily filled tart.

But there is a dispute about the perfect consistency of the fillings in butter tarts. Some people like the filling so runny that it dribbles in a sticky stream down one's chin. Others like the filling so stiff that it has to be chewed.

We were lucky because Pat's Aunt Margaret (Margaret Pirrie) had a recipe in which the filling was always in the perfect mid-point between the two extremes, firm enough that it didn't dribble but soft and succulent.

Sorry if I have offended any of you who may have a different view of the ideal butter tart, but it is clear that this is the tart that true connoisseurs (aka Pat and I) prefer.

So, armed with Aunt Margaret's recipe and two pounds of Crisco, we set off for Malaysia.

At the hotel, Pat explained her plan to the pastry chef. He studied the recipe and then said he would make the tarts for the dinner himself, but there would be a condition. Pat would have to let him add Aunt Margaret's recipe to his repertoire of recipes.

Pat quickly agreed and handed over the recipe and the Crisco.

On the night of the dinner each of the course participants had a perfect Canadian butter tart.

I would like to be able to say that the course members loved the tarts and marveled at the sophistication of Canadian cuisine.

But I can't say that.

The truth is that the participants didn't like them very much.

As one of the Malaysian fellows explained to me, "We don't like things that are too sweet. We like things that have kick."

That made sense. Malaysians have wonderful tropical fruit---papayas, mangoes, pineapples, bananas, etc---that come to the table truly 'tree-ripened' and naturally sweet. They hadn't (at least in 1992) acquired our taste for super sweet desserts.

So our attempt to introduce butter tarts to Malaysia wasn't a great success.

But I have this fantasy.

An important international meeting is being held at Genting Highland---it is a popular place for such conferences---and the Canadian Minister of Finance or perhaps of Foreign Affairs finds on the dessert plate, along with the chocolate bombe (or whatever),  a perfect butter tart. She or he, starts with surprise and pleasure and looks around, and sees standing in the doorway a smiling pastry chef, who bows modestly.

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One of the participants, who was from Penang State in the northwest coast of the Malaysian Peninsula, invited us to visit him after the course.

After consulting some tour books we decided to take the train from Kuala Lumpur to Penang (about 370 kilometres)  so that we could get a feel for the Malaysian jungle. When I told one of the members of the course---a woman who came from a wealthy family---that we were going by train, she became alarmed, "Oh no, the train is dirty you must go by taxi, or fly."

"But we're going first class on the train," I countered.

"That just means the cockroaches are twice as big as the ones in second class", she responded.

We did in fact go by train and had a splendid view of the jungle and of rubber, banana, and palm oil plantations.

The menus were a little fly-specked but we didn't see any cockroaches.

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Our host gave us  a very pleasant tour of beautiful Penang. We could see why Kipling, Maugham and other writers had raved about this 'Jewel of the Orient'. As the tour ended the host asked if we would like to see 'a nutmeg factory'.

Ever ready for an adventure we agreed, and he drove us up into hills outside Georgetown, the main city in Penang, to a farm that had a number of open-air buildings in which the fleshy nutmeg fruit were being processed.

Our host gave us a short lecture on the nutmeg. At the centre of the fruit is the nutmeg seed pod that is covered with a coating that is removed and ground into the spice, mace. The 'nut' that is left becomes the nutmeg that we all have on our spice shelves.

Meanwhile, the fleshy outer part of the fruit is cooked, aged in sugar syrup, and dried in the sun. There is a Malaysian name for it but we just called it crystallized nutmeg. 

We fell in love with it!

It has a rich, strong nutmeg flavour and is sweet but not too sweet. We bought many packages to carry back to Canada.

We ate it right from the package as a kind of candy but I understand that some people use it in cooking, especially in desserts.

There was a Chinese store on Somerset Street in Ottawa that used to stock it but the store changed hands and the new owner, who was probably from Hong Kong (where crystallized nutmeg seems to be unknown) rather than Malaysia or Singapore, stopped carrying it.

Friends brought us a few packages from a trip to Singapore some years ago but since then we have been without the flavourful treat.

I have searched for it in the Asian stores that have been springing up around Toronto but without success.

My plan now is to write to the President's Choice people and tell them that if they want a culinary scoop they should send a buyer to Penang and feature crystallized nutmeg in one of their upcoming PC Reports.

As an indication of my commitment to the suggestion, I will even volunteer to  go along  (no finder's fee, just expenses) to make sure the buyer finds the right nutmeg factory!

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See you on March 27th for Posting #108 with more stories from our family’s universe! If you have comments or suggestions, please leave a comment at the bottom of this posting,  or email me at johnpathunter@gmail.com.

POSTING #104

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A Sin-Free Lifestyle in Malaysia

On February 13th, the BBC carried a story that began, "Malaysia has stepped up a campaign to stop Muslims celebrating Valentine's Day---labelling it a 'trap' that could encourage immoral behavior."

The story quoted the Deputy Prime Minister as saying that the February 14th celebration of romantic love was "not suitable' for Malaysian Muslims---who make up about 60% of the nation's population, with people of Chinese and Indian origin making up most of the rest.

It went on to say that several states in Malaysia were going to carry out checks on hotels to stop young couples from having premarital sex.

On February 15th, the day after Valentine's, Yahoo News reported that nearly 100 Muslims had been arrested for 'khalwat' which was defined as having close proximity with someone of the opposite sex other than one's spouse. Some of those arrested were teenagers who had rented hotel rooms for two hours for about US $15.

Those charged were told that they faced up to two years in jail and a fine.

The officials said their goal was to promote a sin-free lifestyle for Malaysian Muslims.

The Malaysian Government's attack on the Valentine's Day tradition reminded me of efforts the Government used to make, and perhaps still does, to confront another sin---not romantic love, but GAMBLING.

In February 1992 I was conducting a two-week management training course for senior officials of the Malaysian employment service. The course was held in the resort community of Genting Highlands, an hour's drive from Kuala Lumpur. Mary (not her real name), a Canadian trainer, assisted with the training, and Pat came along to provide support and to enjoy the beauty of the lush resort.

After dinner on our first evening in Genting Highlands, Pat and I were sipping coffee at a pool-side table. The air was soft and warm, and an almost-full moon looked down on us.

A perfect night---especially when we thought of the February cold and snow back in Canada.

And then. looking high and to our right, we saw what seemed to be a shimmering white palace floating in the air. Looking more closely we could see that it was a large building on top of a huge, dark mountain.

We asked the Muslim server about the building.

"It's a casino", she replied with a disapproving air.

I learned that although gambling is, of course, forbidden by Islam, the national government and clerical leaders had made a deal that permitted a developer to create a casino---so long as the developer ensured that Muslims were never allowed to enter. Apart from the 60% of Malaysians who are Muslim, the Chinese and Indian communities have many successful business people who love to gamble. In addition to local, non-Muslim patrons, the casino was designed to cater as well to tourist gamblers from Japan and other Asian nations.

I was intrigued by the casino and by how it managed to screen out Muslims. At the end of training one day, my assistant and I and three members of the course---a Muslim, who had a car and kindly offered to take us to the casino even though he couldn't go in, and two Chinese officials--- drove up to the casino, while Pat rode up in a scenic-tour cable car.

The old Korean-made sedan was too underpowered to be climbing mountains and as we laboured up the switchback road I kept wondering if we were going to have to get out and push. But we made it to the top.

And met a shaken Pat.

She had been the only woman in the cable car, crowded in with 10 or so men of Asian extraction, all of them shorter than her 5 feet 8 inches. She doesn't like heights at the best of times and instead of enjoying the view, as the advertising literature recommended, she focused on a spot on the roof of the car and waited for the torture to end.

Once Pat had recovered, we walked toward the casino.

Seen close up, the casino was pretty horrendous----not a glorious palace but rather a complex of tawdry and tired box-like buildings.

Our Muslim colleague stayed with his car and the rest of us entered the casino. Our passports were examined---the first step in screening out Muslims---and we were allowed to proceed. People who had Malaysian passports (mainly Chinese and Indian) were required to leave a deposit large enough to pay the travel costs back to their homes. The casino had learned that its patrons couldn't be trusted to hold back enough money for the trip home.

We were told that if we 'hit the jackpot' we would be required to spend the night at the casino hotel so we wouldn't be robbed by bandits on the way down the mountain. Apparently there was someone in the casino leaking information on big winners to the bandits!

As we entered the gaming area, burly Malaysians did the final Muslim screening (profiling?). They studied our faces to make sure we didn't look like Muslims---that is, that we didn't look like 60% of the population.

We changed some money for the slot machines and had a good time, joking as money kept disappearing into the machines, with only an occasional small win---which was promptly 're-invested'.

The other patrons weren't laughing. They were tense and agitated.

Let's face it, whether gambling is a sin or not, gambling is not fun and gamblers are not fun people!

Once we had lost all our slot machine money, we wandered over to the sections for 'serious' gambling--- a variety of card and dice games and, of course, roulette wheels. After a while we grew bored and left.

We all squeezed into the car, including Pat (she was NOT going back down in the cable car!). The car's brakes survived the steep trip down the mountain, although they squealed and smoked a bit.

In the remaining evenings at Genting Highlands, we would look up at the casino and marvel at how something that looked so hauntingly beautiful could be so banal and boring.

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After the course ended, we spent a few days in Kuala Lumpur so I could finish off my work with officials at the head office of the employment service. During lunch one day, I laughingly told one of the officials---a researcher of Indian origin with a good post-graduate degree from an American university---about our casino experience.

Thinking that I was serious about the lost money, he expressed regret and said that if he had known we were going to the casino he would have introduced me to a local 'gambling advisor'---read, 'fortune telle'r--- he knew. He said that most Chinese and Indian men in Malaysia went to such advisors before gambling. The advisors would analyze astrological data, the position of the stars etc. and then provide precise instructions on how to improve the odds of winning.

He told me that one of his friends had been told to climb over the fence at the local zoo and get a pheasant's egg and a feather from a nightingale. He was then to put the egg in the right pocket of his jacket and the feather in the left, and to make sure he entered the casino by the right-hand door at exactly 4 PM on a specified date.

As he finished this story, I'm afraid I laughed and blurted out, "And they take this seriously?'

The official bristled. "It works, not every time to be sure, but people who go to the fortune tellers win more often than those who don't. My friend, for example, won a great deal of money."

I thought of that advanced US degree and how even educated people can be superstitious---and then remembered that I will do anything to avoid walking under a ladder.

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A final story about Malaysia, one that I think can be considered as part of this Posting's theme of trying to live a sin-free life in Malaysia.

While I was meeting with officials at the employment ministry in Kuala Lumpur, Pat, along with my assistant, Mary, and one other Canadian woman decided that they would like to visit an outdoor market noted for its gold jewellery. They were told by the hotel that it would be unwise to go by themselves---without a man---so they prevailed upon a friend of ours, a Canadian of Indian origin who happened to be in Malaysia on business, to accompany them.

We will call him George.

The hotel doorman got them a taxi, one of the large, air-conditioned cars that one finds at up-scale hotels.

It was one of Kuala Lumpur's typical hot, steamy days and the women found that after an hour or so at the market they couldn't take the sun and heat any more. They were eager to get back to the cool hotel.

With the three women standing at his side, George tried to flag down a taxi, not one of the fancy hotel taxis, just something that would get them back to the hotel.

Empty cab after empty cab ignored George's vigorous waves and sailed by without stopping.

One of the wilting women complained, "What's wrong with those taxis?'

George looked at the women, with a grin. "It's you damn white women. They think I'm a pimp with my girls. No decent Muslim is going to pick us up."

Finally, a taxi, driven by a non-Muslim, stopped and the women and George were soon back in the hotel, having a long cool drink in the bar.

And laughing about 'George and his girls'.


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See you on March 6 for Posting #105 with more stories from our family’s universe! If you have comments or suggestions, please leave a comment at the bottom of this posting, or email me at johnpathunter@gmail.com.