In the early cold mornings before school, I would sit at the dining table. Before me was a pyramid-like bundle filled with fluffy and coconut-infused rice known as Nasi Lemak. Each time I unwrap it from its fresh banana leaves, I unwrap a piece of my childhood that is deeply bound within the meal. There is a gentle sweetness amongst the spice when mixing the rice with its sambal and cooling sensation when crunching on its cucumbers. Though I love the hawker-bought Nasi Lemak packed tightly for my convenience, I yearn for the warmth of my mother’s ‘air tangan’.
In the midst of growing up, as the eldest usually does, I left home to venture into new skies. It was during these moments between learning how to cook and deeply craving home dishes that I realised the shared struggle experienced by many of remaking their cultural dishes within the dominant British space. Determined as I always am, I started gathering key ingredients from my local oriental store in Lancaster: rice, dried chilies, ginger, anchovies, pandan but was taken aback when there were no banana leaves in sight.
In times of distress such as this, one can only adapt to the lack of authentic ingredients by following one’s intuition instead. So banana leaves became brown baking paper and funnily enough my own rendition of the nation’s most loved dish, Nasi Lemak, was born.
We often disregard the power of food and how our favourite local recipes weave through notions of society, culture, history, heritage and memory. A change as simple as replacing banana leaves for baking paper to wrap Nasi Lemak holds a message rooted in cultural hybridity and the impact that globalisation has towards food culture. Once upon a time, Malaysia fell into the hands of the British colonisation but now we cook our meals with pride within their homes in hopes to feel something. In her food memoir, A Migrant’s Tale of Food, Home and Belonging, Parvathi Raman encourages discussions around food and migration, highlighting the relationship one has between the food that we consume and the idea of ‘home’ and ‘belonging’. Through her memoir, we are able to understand the significance of food towards migrant families and the centrality of culinary practices in their daily lives which can also be applied to us as Malaysian students surviving in foreign lands. When we begin to view food culture through the politics of the migrant self, it starts to become clear that certain traditions within our culinary experiences serve as a way to preserve our Malaysian identity while seeking that sense of belonging wherever we might be in the world.
Some may question our choice to constantly eat, cook and search for authentic Malaysian cuisines when in the UK, suggesting that we should venture into the culture of others (which I’m guessing is a British sunday roast) and widen our taste palettes since we have been the given the opportunity to do so. But I believe that there is nothing wrong with finding a sense of belonging through the meals that we enjoy. If anything, I find it interesting that my rendition of the national Malaysian dish, Nasi Lemak, is a reflection of who I am as an individual. Just like me, the dish preserves certain elements of my Malaysian heritage through its rich coconut-infused rice and the intricacy of following the steps for a perfect ‘sambal’. For some, we preserve our true Malaysian identity through joining societies and showcasing our art but for others we simply have a spoonful of rice, both of which can be true to its values.
References
Raman, P. (2011) ‘“Me in Place, and the Place in Me”: A Migrant’s Tale of Food, Home and Belonging’, Food, Culture & Society, 14(2), pp. 165–180. doi: 10.2752/175174411X12893984828674.
