These are personal thoughts narrated as I spend some free times in the cyberspace. They are unedited and unrefined. I simply jot down whatever comes to mind at the moment, usually with little planning.
I always cook up excuses to visit mom: it's good for my soul, it's rejuvenating and that I need my battery charged up!! Time between semesters, that is, at the end of one semester and before the next one begins, is always an opportune time to take off and travel to the Far East. Because of the cost and surviving on a merger salary of an educator, I can muster only enough to pay for a ticket, not typical three for all of Mohdzains. At the end Summer semester 2011 and while waiting for Fall semester to begin, off I went.
For months before I reach my mom's, I have fancied and dreamed of eating all the foods I enjoyed during my childhood days. Budu is the one I always savoured. Budu is a brownish thick sauce or a dip made of marinated anchovies. Just like durian, the taste has to be acquired for it smells much too much that hotels and buses would not want you to bring it on board! Budu can be used as a dip for a variety of fried, baked or charcoal-roasted seafoods such as crabs, squids, fish or even meat or hardboiled eggs; but Kelantanese savor it with "ulam", that is, fresh vegetables such as wild ginger buds (bunga gantang) or petai with budu served in sour durian, hot chillies and a slice of lemon and a spoonful of crated coconut. How can one be an authentic Kelantanese if one escapes devouring on budu especially if one has been away much too long as I do. Somehow, budu from Kelantan has more amps and kicks relative to those similarly made in the other parts of Southeast Asia such as Vietnam, Thailand, or the Philippines. I was in the Philippines in March 2011 and I found they too serve budu on their buffet table. I enjoyed budu whenever I was in Thailand and Vietnam too. Whenever I shop at oriental groceries in the States, I found budu manufactured in Vietnam and that will do as a substitute.
I recall my childhood days when I saw how my grandma made budu from anchovies and let it marinated months afterwards in big jar (tempayan) with wooden cover. She lived in Perupok, a village on the seashore facing South China Sea some fourteen miles from where we were. My younger brother and I visited grandma often after school on Thursday and took an afternoon bus to Perupok from Pak Badol. We returned to Pak Badol on Saturdays after having rumbustious and a whale of a time playing on the beach in Perupok. I was often made to bring home some budu, kerepok and of course coconuts. Travelling on buses to reach home was quite a journey. Budu was nicely bottled in a jar and afraid that the glass jar might break, I often hand carried it and placed it on the lap throughout the journey. There I was, a skinny kid of about ten or so with a younger brother trailing having a jar of budu on his lap on the bus. Never once I spilled it. Looking back, I don't think parents nowadays would allow small kids like we were travelling by ourselves. But that was in a different era: different time, space and cultural mileau of pristine innocence. Once home, mom was often generous with neighbors and freely shared the famous grandma budu with them.
Thinking that I wanted to make use of all these times I was away and to chow mainly with budu throughout my stay was foolhardy. Upon my return to the States, I realized there were something within that was not quite right and off I went to my family physician. He was sure that I have gout and prescribed me some medications.
Having gout can ruin your daily plans. All of a sudden, your joints stiffened and ached whenever it decides to attack you. For the first few days, it created havoc in my daily routines. There I was in pain and tried to pretend that everything was OK and I continued carrying on with my daily tasks. What a big mistake. Perhaps it is that male thing in which gender socialization instills in us not to tolerate and accept pain. Powerful realization but what that got to do with the present painful predicament? Prescription of medications is both an art and science. Give or take a few days or weeks and see how it evolves and helps - an antithesis of cultural mileau of a quick fix for anything and in the meantime, you sustain a quiet but agonizing pain or if you are lucky and the stars are aligned in your favor, a minor discomfort now and then.
I thought I was healthy all these years. It was only when I reached 55 years mark when organs in my body start to break apart unannounced and unexpectedly and the system is not working right.
But nevertheless, once you tasted budu, it stays with you. The following is a dikir barat about budu: how delicious is it and the different ways of consuming it and its effects on everyday life. Enjoy the dikir (you have to understand or at least visit Kelantan to truly appreciate it).
We drove to Shreveport Louisiana yesterday, Saturday, October 13, 2012, some 80 miles away. One was to get out of a small town of Magnolia and two, more importantly, to visit oriental or seafood restaurants or perhaps a justification for Jasmine to shop to spend her dad's money!. We lunched at Danh's Garden, a Vietnamese, Thai and Chinese restaurants. I ordered my favorite: seafood Tom Yam, Tracey went for Thai curry, Jasmine was less adventurous with fried rice and Hope with Chinese noodle soup. After that we ventured to find Asian grocery store and found Bao Bao Market with plenty of Vietnamese food. For the first time in all these years, I found "ulam jering" or "look neng" in thai (at least that was stated on the label. Frozen they may be, but I felt like I found gold. This ulam jering was devoured as soon as I got home. However, instead with budu, I did it with "sambal belacan" added with lime juice and bean sprouts. Of course I also bought "ikan kering" (dried fish) and the whole house took it unkindly and in order to return the favor, the house did not seem to want to let go off the smell for it lingered on and on for several days.
Below is the closest budu I could get. I bought it at an Asian Grocery Store in Shreveport, Bao Bao, The owner said that his parents were from Vietnam. He identified himself as Chinese Vietnamese and that he was born in the United States but his parents emigrated from Vietnam during those horrific days of the Vietnamese war. I asked him if his parents were among those who landed in Trengganu and were placed temporarily at Pulau Bidong. His immediate reactions let me to perceive that he wasn't comfortamble talking about it. After all, I was only a patron of his grocery store ans I let it go and dropped the subject.
Getting a bottle of bu-do sauce is close enough. I immediately imagined that this product was made somewhere in southern Thailand, close enough to tasting the old familiar budu, the Kelantanese version, the one that my paternal grandmother used to make and put the tempayang (big jug container where the anchovies mix was left fermenting for several months) next to the tangga at her house in Perupok Kelantan. It tasted somewhat sweeter than I would anticipate, but enjoying it I did all the same!
I love the "impromptu" and this kind spontaneity plus the simplicity of it all, is what distinguished the great from the mediocre. I am all for cultivating new generations of such greats in our youngs.
