Monday, February 14, 2011

Now You See It, Now You See Them

On coffee runs to Starbucks, I take a detour and walk by this estate. I was rather tickled by the things hanging off this overhead cable for dunno-what-street-lighting-perhaps. The residents in this estate have cleverly made full use of the available space and hang large hooks off the cable. On the weekdays when it isn't raining, clothes and underwear hang off it. Quite a common sight.

Over the weekend, I did a usual run, stopped dead in my tracks and laughed till I doubled over. With images of clothes fresh in my mind, I did a double take. Slabs of meat, presumably pork, swing gently in the cold wind and seem none the worse for wear. I've no idea why this is done. Do people cure meat in the cold? Or do they simply use the big wide outdoors as a natural refrigerator? The pieces of meat are quite big and might not fit into a small home chiller. It doesn't seem likely that industrial chillers are installed in most flats.

From what the friends say, this is quite the usual sight during January. It's entirely plausible that whichever unit the meat belongs to, is meant to be cooked for guests during Chinese New Year.

11 comments:

Jo said...

*gasp* hahaha! Thanks for sharing. it is most enlightening! :D

kikare said...

Well, here we use the balcony to chill drinks. It's most bizarre when half-drunk people keep walking out to the balcony, bends over for a few seconds and emerge with a beer/cider in their hands.

My mother used to hang eels out by the window in winter (even in HK) to semi-dry the eel before steaming it. The eel then would be cut into large chunks and steamed. When deboned, it's the perfect condiment to 泡飯.

imp said...

jomel: heeeee.

kikare: hanging off windows are quite common i suppose. but on cable?! that is like, FTW man. eel in rice? wow! is it like claypot?

kikare said...

No it's not like clay pot. 泡飯 is a lazy version of congee. You just boil leftover steamed rice in water for a few minutes and eat it with condiments. Since the pao fan is tasteless you need condiments that are stronger in taste. When the eel dries a bit it becomes more salty. It's very different from the grilled eel you find at Japanese places. I figured out that it's the same fish only years later :p

Dawn said...

Wow that's awesome! At least it's not sneakers over the line :)

tuti said...

haha, i had to take a double take. thought my eyes was playing tricks. no wonder you went bent with laughter.

imp said...

kikare: OHHH! I see!

dawn: sneakers would look quite normal!

tuti: heh.

Dawn said...

You know the whole sneakers over the line drug thing right?

supercoati said...

They hang the meat out to dry the skin and you get one of the best crackling when you roast meat that has been air dried like this. Home make lup cheongs and dried cured meat are air dried like this too. Singapore is just too humid for this to be done. We tend to put our meat in laundry bags to prevent the creepy, crawlies from getting to it and tend to hang it in our private garden overseas but for these people, they prob do it the way my grandma did-just brush the meat with a layer of vinegar and cover it with a layer of salt. It's like a insect repellant, serious! As least that's what grandma claims then.

supercoati said...

Aiyo, lots of typos but I'm too lazy to correct them. I think you know what I'm trying to say ;)

imp said...

dawn: YES!

supercoati: OHHH. Now I get the picture! I wouldn't have known if you hadn't said so!