Food highlight covers8/12/2023 George Town is Penang’s capital.At George Town’s Chowrasta Market you can sample the region’s best jeruk (sweet and sour pickled fruits), a Penang delicacy. In hawker centres, look out too for murtabak (pan-fried dough folded around minced or diced chicken, beef or mutton, or vegetables). The Penang version mixes up pieces of fried tofu, boiled egg, shredded cucumber, jicama (a type of turnip), prawn crackers and a selection of fried seafood, all topped with a thick and creamy sauce made from tomato, peanuts and sweet potato. The popular Penang meal nasi kandar (steamed rice served with a variety of curries and side dishes) has its origins in the Indian food hawkers who would carry around their buckets of rice and curry balanced at either end of a kandar (pole).Īnother Indian Penang specialty is pasembur, a salad which is known as rojak in other parts of Malaysia and Singapore. With them they brought their spicy cooking traditions and tastes. The first Indians on Penang arrived as soldiers and sailors with Captain Light. Other Peranakan dishes to look out for include jiu hoo char (stir-fried shredded cuttlefish with yam bean) and popiah, a type of non-fried spring roll that was brought to Penang by Hokkien and Teochew migrants during the British colonial period. This gives the dish a soft texture and a milder taste than the Melaka version, which is grilled over charcoal and thus has a strong smoky smell and flavour as well as a firmer texture. The classic Penang otak otak has the addition of betel leaves to its recipe and is wrapped in banana leaves before being steam-cooked. There are also differences in the way certain Peranakan dishes are cooked, such as with the spicy fish paste otak otak. An optional splash of heh ko (dark shrimp sauce) provides an added flavour kick. The dish is made from rice noodles topped with a spicy and sour fish gravy, flakes of fish (usually mackerel or sardine, but sometimes skipjack tuna) and garnished with slivers of fresh pineapple, cucumber, chilli, mint and finely shredded torch ginger flowers. The classic example of this is Penang’s version of the noodle dish laksa, commonly known as asam laksa after the tart asam (tamarind) that is one of its key ingredients. Chillies, lime juice and tamarind pulp are frequently used to create distinctly sour, lip-numbingly hot sensations. Nonya cuisine, from the Peranakan community.Penang’s Peranakan community has its roots in the intermarriage of early Chinese migrants with local women.īecause of Penang’s geographical location, Peranakan cuisine (also referred to as Nonya cuisine) here is heavily influenced by punchy Thai flavours. The food of Penang reflects the intermingling of these cultures and is a gastronomic highlight of Malaysia. The growth of the city’s spice trade was accompanied by the arrival of immigrants: Malays from Kedah, Chinese from Canton, Achehnese from Sumatra, Indians from British India, Thais from across the border and Burmese. Light permitted new arrivals to claim as much land as they could clear and, together with a duty-free port and an atmosphere of liberal tolerance, this quickly attracted settlers from all over Asia.īy the 19th century Penang was considered one of the finest islands in the world for nutmeg and cloves. In 1786 Captain Francis Light, on behalf of the East India Company, took formal possession of Penang, hoisting the Union Flag above Britains first Malay (and Southeast Asian) territory. The island came under the control of the sultan of Kedah, but in 1771 the sultan signed the first agreement with the British East India Company, handing them trading rights in exchange for military assistance against Siam (present-day Thailand). It wasn’t until the early 1700s that colonists arrived from Sumatra and established settlements at Batu Uban and the area now covered by southern George Town, Penang’s capital. Chinese seafarers were aware of the island, which they called Pulau Pinang (Betelnut Island), as far back as the 15th century, but it was little more than a way station en route to trading ports. While most people know of Penang as the pearl-shaped island off the northwest coast of Peninsular Malaysia, Penang State also covers the mainland port town of Butterworth and the surrounding area of Seberang Perai. Kuala Lumpur residents have been known to make the four-hour drive to Penang for a single meal, and hungry Singaporeans pack out hotels on weekends. Offering up some of Malaysia’s best multi-culinary cooking, Penang is generally regarded as the region’s gastronomic ground zero. PHOTOS: GETTY IMAGES The food of Penang is a gastronomic highlight of Malaysia, Lonely Planet discovers. The food of Penang reflects the intermingling of its migrant cultures - British, Indian, Malays and Thais.
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