My early years, the way I remember it...4

Sustenance 1

It was not that we were fully dependent on food supplies from town while at the settlement.  We were well endowed by the Malaysian (Malayan then) tropical rainforest.  Furthermore, Ma had this wonderful greenfinger about her.  As King Midas would turned all things to gold, anything she put to the soil would bear to the fullest.  As father prepared his rubber plantings in stages, we had areas that can be planted with cash crops.  Apart from the home need veges, Ma planted several kinds of beans, root crops, watermelon, pumpkin, corn and several others.  Father, together with other menfolks planted hill rice.  The planting and harvesting of the hill rice was done gotong-royong style on a community basis and thus we children were not spared the labour (best translated as fun time).  I can never describe the joy of hill rice harvesting under the moonlight! It was not just the sight of toil but the laughter and the togetherness that went with it that is beyond description that one has to experience to feel it all.  The bonfire and the smoke were way more enjoyable than the synthetic fireworks of today.  

Pucuk paku and paku kemiding (both are fern) were aplenty, free and for the picking.  We had maman (Cleome gynandra) too that we found growing wild and later cultivated.  Ma's fermented (jeruk) maman was just scrumptious especially taken with steaming hot rice and fried fish.  Of course there were long beans, kacang catok, kacang bebulu (later I recognise this to be soybean!), cili padi, lada solok, red chili and brinjal that Ma planted.  Petai (Parkia speciosa), jering (Archidendron pauciflorum) and kerdas (A. bubalium) were aplenty too growing wild in the forest.  Not to mention keladi kemoyang (Homalomena sagittifolia) growing under productive rubber trees.  The expense needed was the energy to harvest.

Ma planted several cultivars of tuberous root crops too.  I don't really know how she managed to come up with such a massive collection of cultivars.  I remember two of my favourite, ubi torok and ubi badak (Dioscorea alata).  Boiled, we normally had them for breakfast.  Ubi gadung can be found growing wild.  But this root crop needed a bit of preparation for safe consumption.  I remember Tok Semail used to have them in gunny sacks hung from trees by the river in the fast flowing water.  After over a week of soaking, the tubers were steamed to be eaten with grated coconut.  No word can describe the taste but one just have to eat it for the taste experience.  We had tapioca too.  However, it was not to be intercropped with the rubber plants.  Tapioca was known to be a notorious nutrient 'sucker' that may soon deplete the soil of fertility.

I remember Ma's watermelon patch well.  It was located at the confluence of a stream that met the Sungai Golok river.  We called the place Tanjung (reminded me of the place years later when told that Georgetown, Penang was first known as Tanjung before the British takeover).  I remember chasing after and killing the api-api insect that would eat through the melon's leaves if uncontrolled.  We were told to save the ladybugs for they were the friendly insect.  How's that for an ecology lesson on the run (literarily).  Incidentally all these crops that Ma planted were organically grown.  No pesticides were used and all fertilizers were organically based.  That was way before SOM (Standard Organic Malaysia) was introduced! 

I'll have words on our protein source next.