Malaysia

Learning about Malaysian food has been a mysterious adventure because so much of it is very new to me, and also because it's rare that I know what I'm eating. Food is inexpensive in Malaysia and eating out is very popular, certainly because it's so affordable, but also because it's a social activity. In my first week and a half here I ate out with my host mom at least once a day, and times that I have been invited to hang out with Malaysians have always involved going out to eat.

Malaysian life is punctuated by eating. There are more acceptable eating times here. We have breakfast, lunch, tea at 4, dinner at 6ish, and then supper around 9 or 10. We don't always take tea and I skip supper sometimes, but usually each of these eating occasions is a full-fledged meal. I live with a Chinese Malaysian family so we eat Chinese food at home, but Malaysian food is as varied as the racial profile of the country. There are three distinct racial groups in Malaysia: Malays, Chinese, and Indians. Each group has its own food and the diversity and cross over between the groups creates a large amount of variety.

Most meals are rice or noodle based, and Malaysian food is spicy and generally very flavorful. Each region has its specialties and in Penang last weekend we ate peanut pancakes, some of the best Indian food I've ever had in Little India, and some regional noodle specialties.


Char kwey teow hawker stall.


Char kwey teow and Sugarcane juice.


A Gurney Drive, a hawker center in Penang.


Fried chicken skin, spring rolls, fried yam, and some other unidentifiable fried objects (UFOs?)

A lot of tropical fruit grows in Malaysia, some of which I was familiar with, but most of it I'd never had or even seen before. A lot of the local fruits are very sweet and are strange looking (to me) with hair, spikes, and vibrant colors. I haven't had durian yet, but people ask me on a regular basis if I've had it and what I think. It's probably the third most frequently asked question after "Where are you from?" and "Is it hot here for you?"




Rambutan, a hairy fruit.

Some of the best food I've had since I've been here is from hawker stalls. Malaysia is full of street food and hawker stalls pop up on corners, in hawker centers, and yesterday I saw a hawker biking his stall down the street. Most stalls only sell a few things, but the good stalls do a really good job at the one thing they sell. And hawker food is even less expensive than food from restaurants so it can make eating out really cheap.


Satay hawker stall.

One of the things I enjoy the most about Malaysian food culture is the communal nature of meals and eating. Malaysians usually order for me (this probably happens to me more frequently than normal Malaysians because I usually don't know what to order or how to pronounce most things on the menu) and at family meals one person orders a number of dishes for the table. When the food comes the dishes stay in the middle of the table and everyone takes what they'd like. People often refill my plate for me when they see I've run out of food and they go out of their way to make sure to give me things I like and to make sure I have enough food. I am learning a lot about hospitable eating and having the opportunity to eat out often because of the availability and inexpensiveness of food has been a pleasure.