Bakchang festival (粽子 or Zongzi in pinyin) falls on the fifth day of the fifth month of the lunar calendar, which is on 23 June 2012. Rice dumplings or bakchangs wrapped and cooked in traditional bamboo or pandan leaves are being sold at the neighborhood food centres, fetching as much as $3.00 each as the festival approaches.
For older folks bakchang is comfort food, with fond memories of families getting together, preparing them in huge woks. With passing of older folks with the patience and who know how to prepare them, most people have to content themselves with commercially prepared ones, sometimes made and frozen months before the festival, or hope earnestly someone will remember and share their homemade bakchangs or rice dumplings.
Pulau Ubin is probably the last place in Singapore you can see them prepared in authentic village settings, with as much as 300 dumplings prepared for a large extended family.
As an outsider, I came prepared this time. My sisters are excellent cooks, so I ask them to prepare the sought after homemade dumplings as gifts, as what is given away are returned in kind, while giving us also a welcomed chance to photograph document a passing scene.
Giant pandan tree (left) at house backyard
Giant pandan trees with leaves harvested.
Meter long pandan leaves.
Pandan leaves cut in half meter lengths. Compared to bamboo leaves where 2 pieces are used to wrap the dumpling, each half meter piece is sufficient.
It is sometimes distressful to think about fond memories of events and places disappearing in Pulau Ubin. Even healthy trees are not spared, all because they posed some remote danger. This quaint curvy coconut tree bent a bit too much and was tagged with white tape to be chopped down. I just found out the reason why when trees are being tagged in tapes and after finding trees are being felled at a rapid pace in Pulau Ubin.
Dead trees growing!
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