Childhood Memories. It’s all about FOOD.

Thanks to funky cookies for keeping me busy with this meme assignment. Had to dig deep into my food archives, so here it goes …

Ice Cream

No Haagen Daz or Ben & Jerries back then but we were fortunate to have other forms of ice-cream available. We had the ice cream on sticks (ice-cream stick collection was popular then), ice cream on cones (sold by the roving ice cream vendors on carts), ice-cream in cups, ice-cream in tubs and even home made ice cream (rare attempts on ice cream making by my folks).

The most popular and affordable back then was the ice cream (more like ice stick without cream) made of frozen sweet syrup in a plastic tube. You can suck on it, bite on it or wait for it to melt and then drink the syrup down. My favourite was the orange-flavoured stick with a piece of ‘seng mueh’ (asam seed) at the bottom. For just 10 to 20 sen, this was a popular treat during hot sunny afternoons.

Pork cooked with chili and dried shrimp

This has to be my favourite home-cooked dish. The pork has to have both fat and lean parts, and then cooked in chili and dried shrimp. It becomes this juicy-spicy-sweet-salty-tasty meat dish. I used to slowly pick at this dish after finishing my rice, selecting only the juicy fat chunks out to eat. This dish taste good with rice, as sandwich filling or just by itself.

Canteen Food

In primary school, I had the privilege of avoiding all the oily unhygienic canteen food. You see, my parents took the trouble each day to prepare or buy food for me. So during recess time, while the rest of the kids queued up at the canteen to buy their daily fare of mee goreng, tauhu sumbat and syrup water, I will find a spot to munch on my kaya bread or on some other days a peanut butter sandwich.

Then came the compulsory Chinese Language classes which were held after school in higher primary. Suddenly I had to buy my own lunch and from where else but the canteen. But not just any canteen, the secondary school canteen which was way ahead in food variety and standard was open to us primary school kids after school. Finally ‘wholesome’ canteen food ! Had many happy afternoons gorging on the MSG-laden noodles, curry rice, Kickapoo bottled drinks and Keropok.

Dumpling Fest

I know the poet guy jumped into the river, but if not for his suicidal act, they wouldn’t have come out with this delicious tasting ‘fish food’. The dumpling festival comes once a year, but the wait is sure worth it (though nowadays dumplings are sold whole year long). My favourite since childhood would be the ‘Nyonya Zhang’ , followed closely by the ‘Bak Zhang’ and the ‘Kee Zhang’ (dipped in Kaya spread). I still remember how my neighbour used to wake up at unearthly hours to make dumplings outside my window. She made the most tasty ‘Nyonya Zhangs’ around and my parents used to buy some from her every year.

Breakfast Memories

Breakfast was always a blur on those cold school mornings. It was a standard breakfast serving every morning. A cup of hot morning tonic (3 scoops of powdered milk and one tablespoon of milo powder) and one half boiled egg. My sister and I was not too fond of the egg and I would always pour it down my throat as quick as possible. My sister’s approach would be slightly different. She would remonstrate, eye the egg suspiciously, put on a horrified face before finally drinking down the slimy liquid as if it was burning ale.

Now I can add my name into the list of people who has completed this meme. (just list 5 names including yours)

1) Oswego Tea
2) Masak-Masak
3) Insane Babe in the City KL
4) Funky Cookies
5) Teh Tarik Satu

And to pass the baton on to three lucky fellows, hmmm … the more the merrier, so here are the five that I hope will work on this meme assignment.


1) Beer Brat
2) Self Refresh
3) Insane Squirrel
4) Charles
5) Hot Choc


Update : Sorry, I left out the Rules of the meme -
1) List down 5 childhood memories of food.
2) And in the tradition of this meme, list the 4 previous taggers before yourself and then your own name at no.5.
3) Tag 3 (or more) other bloggers to continue this meme.
All the best !