WhatCHA up to?

The ancestors of our nation’s Hakkas came to Malay as labourers. They were the roughest of the rough – a tough, mostly crude and uneducated lot, even the women. Hard work was a way of life for them, both men and women.

The Hakkas were brought over to Malaya from Guangdong in China in the 19^th century by the British who had just colonised Sabah. This ethnic group was selected for its industriousness and the hardiness of the stock. They were the only Chinese dialect people whose women worked aside their men, in the scorching tin mines. 

The harsh austerity of their lives allowed few luxuries, but as if in defiance to their rough work, the Hakkas prided themselves on one particular dish. Known as Looi Cha, it is a spread of many vegetable dishes served with steamed white rice.  It was de rigueur for the vegetables to be sliced finely and shredded thinly. Even vegetables like choysum were chopped up, so that there was no evidence of the long stalks. The vegetables that made up the dish were by necessity those the Hakkas could plant themselves or procure cheaply, thus there were long beans, flowering kale, spinach (amaranth or Chinese spinach, not the Western kind), mustard cabbage, sweet stems (sauropus, sayur manis or 'chee chai choy'), sweet potato leaves as well as tofu and fried groundnuts. 

All the ingredients were prepared in a very basic way – seasoned with salt and pepper, some soy and some sesame oil and garlic. The most important addition to these was pickled stem lettuce, thinly chopped, which gave the dishes aroma and flavour. The only luxury was that of the time needed to carefully chop, dice and julienne the ingredients. All these little components were then served (either all on one dish like an Indian thali platter) or in bowls for diners to help themselves. 

The unifying component of this meal was the hot, aromatic soup which was made of ground Chinese tea leaves (either black or green tea), lightly browned white sesame seeds, toasted to release the oil, Indian mint (not lemon balm, but the Asian variety) and toasted nuts. These would be pounded together to form a thick paste which was then added to boiling water to steep. Most Hakkas would swamp the rice and vegetables in this hot, fragrant soup and eat the dish like a congee. 

My mum-in-law's Looi Cha. This is the ultimate in slow food.

Today there are a number of Hakka and non-Hakka restaurants/cafe offering this dish. I love it because it beckons to a time of greater simplicity, a harsher time, no doubt, but also a time where food was more pure, more natural and used almost as soon as it came out from the ground. 

If I had to pick a kind of food to detox with, this is it. I’m not detoxing today, but I am still very glad that mum-in-law and eldest aunt-in-law got together to present this dish for dinner. We may live in different times, and indeed, this dish is in direct opposition to our fast food sentiments, but to me, this is the dish which hits home the point that good things come to those who wait.