Tengkats aka Mangkok Tengkats

The word Tengkats or Mangkok Tengkats mean Tiffin Carriers.

The word tiffin means Lunch, or any light meal.Tiffin is a word that perhaps more than any other evokes British India. It entered the language at the very beginning of the nineteenth century, perhaps because the fashion for eating dinner mid-afternoon was giving way to a main meal taken later in the day, requiring a lighter midday meal and a name for it. Why the much older luncheon or lunch wasn't used isn't clear. Instead, the English in India borrowed tiffing, an old English dialect or slang word for taking a little drink or sip.

The use of Tiffin Carriers is still very much alive in its traditional heartland of India. Lunches are still cooked at home by workers’ wives and then transported, often by train, perhaps 20 or 30 miles to their places of work by tiffin-wallahs, each three-tiered tiffin-carrier probably passing through several hands in a highly sophisticated and efficient cooperative process.

The use of tiffin carriers spread down to South East Asia. They come in all sorts Kow Tik - Enamel type ones embellished with flowers and some even with words wishing the recipents Happy Feasting on it, but the most unwieldy and unpractical table-ware made to Straits Chinese specifications is the Porcelain Tengkats. The tengkat dishes (usually four) are stack one over the other, they are so loosely fitted that a slight tilt will send them and thier contents tumbling down imagine the difficulty of transporting food. I was told that to help in the transportation some of the older tengkats have two circular wooden boards, one on top of the other and held by three post, one of which is detachable so that the tengkat can be fitted into the carrier. To facilitate carrying a brass or iron handle in fitted on the top of the wooden board.

Now if only i can get to see one of those carriers and dine using one of the tengkats :-)

Rose Pink Tengkat

Rose Pink Tengkat consisting of four tiered dishes with a slightly domed cover. The design consist of trailing branches of peonies is typical of Peranakan taste come from Tung Chih period

Perot Rumah 2

In the kitchen there will be three stone implements. They are used for the grinding and pounding of ingredients before the arrival of electrical appliances.

Batu Giling - Grinder

Batu Lesong - Motar and Pestle

Batu Boh - Mill

The pots and pans of the day would be eatherware objects which included water jugs, belangahs - Indian style pots use for cooking curries. Utensils use for cooking would be made from coconut shells.

"Cooking was done over a concrete fireplace using firewood for fuel. When one tried to get the fire going by blowing through a foot-long, hollow, iron pipe, the ashes would fly into one's face and hair. It was hot, perspiring work. Common utensils used were the kuali or curved frying pan, and the belanga for cooking curry, besides the usual metal pots and pans these utensils were always black with soot and smoke from the firewood"
Rainbow Around My Shoulder - Ruth Ho

Another item found is the Nyiru - Bamboo Trays of varied sizes and shapes. This trays are use to sun-dry spices as well as vegetables, keropok - fish crackers, belachan - shrimp paste and other items.

Rice is stored in a tempayan - glazed earthenware jar while sugar, salt, kapor are kept in small porcelain containers.

Another indispensable tool would be the Parutan Kelapa - Coconut Grinder and in some households there would even be a ice cream maker.

Perot Rumah 1

The kitchen is the centre of household life and activity in a Baba house the matriach of the house and the womanfolk would gather here to prepare food and even entertain relatives and friends. That is why the Baba akin the kitchen as the Perot Rumah or The stomach of the house.

" My grandmother's friends never had to venture beyond the comforting embrace of the kitchen when visiting her. It is from here that my grandmother entertained traders, family friends and relatives as the the mistress of the house" Lim Kean Siew, The Eye Over the Golden Sands - Pelanduk Publications

In the days before refrigeration, live fowls were kept in cages in the backyard. Food had to be stored away from ants and cockroaches, so a long hook will hang from the ceiling and on this hook a small wooden box enmeshed with fly screen doors was suspended. The meat storage boxes were later replaced by tall almari cupboards with fly screen doors. The four high legs of the almari stood in small bowls made of ceramic which were filled with water to deter ants.

Cooking was done on long brick stoves with several holes over which the cooking pots were placed. The fuel source would be firewood in the early days, charcoal was only available later.

The furniture would be a square or long wooden table with long bangku (benches) for preparing food as well as for the servants dining.

Wooden drying racks hung on the walls were use to store the many tools required for food preparation.

Loak Embok Embok - Nyonya Cuisine

The correct term to describe Peranakan food - Is Nyonya Food or Loak Embok Embok. Why ??? It is because the food is cooked by Nyonyas..but now with more Babas stepping into the kitchen this may not be so.

In the old days the Nyonyas view cooking as an accomplishment to be proud of, daughters were trained in the art of cooking at an early age.

In her book Mrs Lee Chin Koon recollect....

"We were taught to sew and to perform domestic duties expected of us as Peranakan daughter-in laws. Most important of all, we were taught to cook well. We would start by doing simple things around the kitchen like peeling shallots (bawang merah). Even that can be considered an art, as we had to learn to peel the shallots without shedding tears. We were taught to peel the shallots at an arm's length so that the wind would blow the shallot juices away from our eyes.

Matchmakers played an important role in those days. They would call at 10 o' clock in the morning. That was the time when we all prepared our rempah (pounded ingredients), and they could tell by the sound of the mortar and pestle if there were good cooks in the house. There should be a rhythm to the pounding. From the sound of the pounding, we can tell which ingredient is being pounded and also whether the person who is pounding is an experienced cook.

Our Nyonya food is so complicated that it takes years to learn and master. We had to learn to pound our rempah to just the right texture, we had to learn to fry garlic until it was golden brown, light and crispy, we had to learn to combine and measure our spices so that they would harmonize, and we had to learn how to fry our dishes so that the gravies would be clear and bright, not dull, in colour. All these require training, experience and skill. In those days, we didn't use recipes and measurements such as tablespoons, and everything was done by agak (estimation). Everything had to be learned by watching and practice."