Meme: Childhood Memories

I got tagged by the superb cook, boo_licious, at masak-masak. This round of meme is food related childhood memories. Gosh... my memory is really failing me... it's so hard to recall them especially on food.

You see, I don't really eat when I was a child. All I remember was there will always be Miss Ruth Tan (rotan in Malay or rattan/cane in English) accompanying me when my mom feed me lunch and dinner. Hehehe I always keep the food (rice or porridge) in my mouth without chewing them. Hence, I always get lotsa attention from Miss Ruth Tan when I was a child and by the way, during my childhood days, they're not known as child abuse!! Even though I don't eat much, I was errr pretty chubby... see this fei mui (fat little girl in Cantonese). Hahahaha that's me when I was toddler. So chubby, face so round... until now I'm still chubby and round urgghh!

After some checking on the food blogs around, I found the answer in Cathy's My Little Kitchen, apparently this meme was started off at a group blog called The Unrepentant Individual. An individual by the name of Brad Warbiany started the ball rolling by giving the meme a title Time to Unleash a Plague and it has nothing to do with food hahaha... See how things have advanced.

Ok the gist of this meme is pretty simple, write about FIVE food from your childhood that you've missed. Next, you'll need to remove the blog #1 from the following list and bump everyone up one notch. Place your blog in the last spot (#5). Remember to link up the blogs in the list. Then tag THREE bloggers to finish up your task. I've taken boo's lead via Oswego Tea since Belly-Timber have 2 bloggers tagged and so is boo's.

1. A Finger in Every Pie
2. The Traveler's Lunchbox
3. Oswego Tea
4. Masak-masak
5. Babe in the City KL

Here we go now...

Sundays Breakfast
Those days we hardly ever eat out except on Sunday mornings. My dad will wake my brothers and I early in the morning just to go to Yut Kee for breakfast. Darn... my brothers and I would grumble and grumble and trying to drag our feet trying to get outta bed on Sunday mornings. Hahaha... I have to say the breakfast at Yut Kee is really worth it. Imagine having delicious pork chop, chicken chop, Hainan style fried noodles, lum meen, roti babi... super yummy Hainanese style fare! Sorry hah... me super lazy to do translation. Oh oh oh... AND those delicious kaya swiss rolls and marble cakes that mom will tarpau (take-away) back. Check this lovely pork chop... yumyum topped with delicious gravy, peas, tomatoes, onions and deep fried potatoes. Hmm I think I must ask my mom to cook me some soon hehehe yumyum. Thanks to Wai Meng of Friedchillies for the visual.

Childhood Gems
boo_licious mentioned this in her meme too. Hey who would forget this Gem biscuit topped with multi-coloured sugar icing. My mom bought a pack from the market recently and my boiboi was captivated. Hahaha... I guess this will continue to be it for generations! Usually I'll eat the icing first before stuffing in the biscuit. Sighhh those were the days.


Chickadees
Who could forgot the famous Charlie Chickadees advert??? Opps that showed my age ain't it? Hahaha, this fave childhood snack disappeared from the market for many many years and recently made a comeback. I was quite excited when I first saw the advert on telly recently. I've no idea it was relaunched until I saw this advert since I don't browse at snacks section. I'm not a big time snacks eater. Got all excited when I saw an opened pack on my colleague's desk. He offered me some wahhhhhh the taste is still exactly the same as the way I remember it! Check out the new packaging over at Lilian's blog. Besides Chickadees, I missed the taste of then, Cheezels and Twisties. They tasted different somehow these days. Is it only me? By the way, my brothers and I are really a deprived lot, we only get to eat snacks once in a long long while as treats. Snacks and chocolates are forbidden food in the household then. Sometimes my uncle will smuggle buy some on the pretext of eating it himself but of course he will shared it with us eventually.

Oh dear only THREE??? Urrghh TWO more to go... what else I've missed huh???

Van Houten's Orange Bitter Chocolate
Ahhhh yes, I remember this since Van Houten no longer in available in this country. It has since replaced with the brand Vochelle from the same manufacturer if not mistaken. I was too young to know but my auntie who was staying with us then used to buy them. She would sneaked some for me since my dictator mom forbade us from eating any sweets nor chocolates when we were young. There are loads of chocolates in the fridge now but none of us would touch them hahaha... I tell you, I simply love this even though it's slightly on the bitter side. I love the orange flavour, it don't taste "fake" unlike some brands these days. Well not that I eat loads of chocolates.

Thanks to my mom's action, we all grew up pretty healthy without having the habit to snack on junk food right up till now. Maybe occasionally we'll indulge but we do not have any cravings for sweets, crisps or chocolates.

Granma's Cooking
There is this particular dish that my paternal granma cooked, I can't really recall what meat she used and what sauce she used to cook it. I was way too young then, most prolly around 9 or 10. All I could remember was it uses those super sour belimbing assam. Super delicious and tangy in taste when cooked. My neighbour used to have a tree in their front yard. My girlfriends and I would pluck the fruits from the tree and play masak-masak with them other than popping them into our mouth, chew and squint our eyes for the tiny little fruit is pretty lethal in the sour department. I googled for the resources and found out the scientific name is Averrhoa Bilimbi. Read more about it here.

Phew... I've completed my homework for 5 food related childhood memories. I'm gonna pass the baton to:

1. Cyrene of My Monologues;
2. aC of Notions of aC; and
3. Dr Chen of Ramblings...

Have fun guys and gals!