K'tan post: Kelantan and the food they made me ate…

There was this one particular one month when I was on my own in Kota Bharu was when all hell broke loose. I went on an eating rampage which I never regret until now even as I went through a hell of time to lose the extra 3 kg and the love handles gained from it. All done is done, the water’s under the bridge, I had fun so nothing bad can be said on it. I think I spent at least RM10 – 15 daily but believe me, that amount is more than enough per person daily. It’s just me losing control here… Hehe…

My relatives whom I’m staying with over the weekends were more than happy to take me to eat out, or buy packed food from many of the famous but nameless stalls such as laksam, nasi berlauk and chakuey in kaya sauce, but nothing beat what they made me eat. These folks served me some of the most delicious traditional delicacies now rarely found or difficult to find in the city such as gelotok (traditional dried sausage made from cow intestines stuffed with meat) and daging lemo’ (le – mok, the Kelantanese version of lemak or fat. There, you get the idea. Fatty meat. Real fatty meat. Chunks of fat with slivers of beef within, roasted with herbs and spices. Your shortcut to hypertension and flabs prior to getting a heart attack). What more, they took care to show me the scrumptious combinations of delicacies and the accompanying rice to eat with like etok (you can find this in Tumpat market) with nasi berlauk or nasi dagang and such.

Speaking of Tumpat, this is my mom’s hometown. My grandpa’s buried here so most raya we’d visit the grave then head off to the pasar Tumpat @ Tumpat market for breakfast or snacks. While my mom did her shopping on various goods to be brought back home to KL, we kids and dad would sit down to our favourite snacks of apam balik (the guy who sold it is from my mom’s childhood days, really old!), somtam (a Thai salad of boiled kangkong and young papaya slices in this spicy – sour sauce. Fuoh… Nice!), sometime roti canai served with sugar instead of the usual dhal gravy or curry and the-so-sweet-your-teeth-hurts milo or teh tarik kurang manis (“less sweet” by name alone…). Then mom would call us to help carry of the spices, sos pencicah, belacan, keropok ikan, pineapple, Thai mangoes and so on before we settle for our next snacks of keropok ikan with sos pencicah. So whenever we travel back to my mom’s hometown, a stop in Tumpat market is a must.