Letter to the Editor
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Yee sarng


          
Dear Editor      

Your "Letter from Pulau Tikus" carried in the last issue and its mention of the New Year brought back memories of the Cantonese Yee Sarng, eaten once a year in celebration of the Taoist Birth of Mankind on the 7th day of the first moon but now degenerated into a feast run by commercial restaurants from the 1st to the 15th day of the first moon.

The day has traditionally been observed as Everyone's Birthday. On that day every family would have a meal of broth cooked with pork or chicken or fish to "chuk sou". The well-to-do who owned fish ponds could afford fish broth. Sometimes they would treat themselves to yee sang in addition to chook. This dish was prepared by slicing the fish thinly, then pouring wine over the slices (the wine is then strained for drinking later). Shredded lopak (1), ginger, char kua (2) (pickled gherkin), k'iu t'au (3), choong (4), shredded lemon leaves, yim sai(5), and if chrysanthemums were available in the garden, the petals are then laid over the "drunken fish" and cooked oil is poured over the dish. After  some "five spices powder," pepper, sugar and salt is sprinkled over the oil all present will take part in stirring up the mixture. The dish is eaten after chopped up fried groundnuts are sprinkled over the dish. Sometimes farn see (6), deep fried then broken up is spread on the yee sang. Nowadays restaurants run the feat from the 1st to the 15 of the 1st moon. Abalone as well as salmon are added as an attraction    

For the poor fish was expensive and they had to make do with pork or chicken broth. Only the lucky ones who caught sarng yee (7) in the rice fields or streams were able to enjoy the once a year meal of yee sang kai chuk and yee sang
            
My father reared fish at Machang Buboh, half way between Bukit Mertajam and Kulim where he had bought 20 acres of land. There was a spring at the top of hill and water flowed from a pond into another pond lower down. He had four kinds of fish in the ponds: wan yee, soong yee, lay yee and leng yee. His friends would come and buy fish from him for the New Year and for Double Tenth (8).

Wan yee was liked for its sweet meat; soong yee for its big head. This   fish  was useful for it would eat the grass in the pond as well as the faeces.   Cooked in rice wine it was good for headaches. I remember there  was a shop   at Kampar  which people from Penang visited just to have  fish head for  their headaches. Lay yee is red in colour and is usually cooked  in ang tau  (9). It is meaty and sweet to taste. Leng yee is full of bones.  The meat is sliced and chopped very fine and made into fishballs or fishcakes for yong tau foo (10). It is usually  to be found among the reeds in the ponds and feeds on the  larvae  of mosquitoes and other insects.

I remember what my father told me about life in his village some 95 kilometres from Canton. Sang yee were reared in ponds surrounded by mulberry and lychee plants. The silk worms were thrown to the fish for food. There is a story about this popular fish which is a favourite with hospital patients recovering from an operation. Its high protein content is believed to assist in the quick healing of operational wounds.

However we are warned that one in a million  of this fish is highly  dangerous, -  a far kuat loong (11). The  unfortnate man who eats this   rare fish by mistake is immedately dissolved.  To avoid fatal errors in the   market this fish is thrown on to the floor and if four legs emerge from its  body it will be identified as a fa kuat loong. My  father told me the story of a villager who had caught one such fish. He gave  it to his dog. All that remained of the dog after that fateful meal  was just   a heap of dog's fur.#


Lily Chee

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Notes

(1) lopak - a vegetable looking very much like a white turnip
(2) char kua - pickled gherkin
(3) k'iu t'au - lor geo in Hokkien, a type of spring onion
(4) choong (ch'ang in Hokkien) - spring onions
(5) yim sai (oan snui in Hokkien) - coriander stem and leaf
(6) farn see - bean or glass vermicelli
(7) sarng yee - lay hoo in Hokkien
(8) Double Tenth - the anniversaryof the ovethrow of the Manchu regime
(9) ang tau - red beans
(10) Yong tau foo - a popular soup containing fish cake in bitter gourd, tou foo, brinjal, large chillies, tau p'ok, ladies fingers wrapped in beancurd sheets and fishballs
(11) far kuat loong - the dragon that dissolves living things              
       

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The Penang File Issue 34