The Mamak Table of Malaysia and Singapore

The mamak table belongs to the Tamil Muslim and wider South Indian Muslim communities who crossed the Bay of Bengal to the Straits ports under the trading networks that joined the Coromandel coast to Malacca, Penang and Singapore. The word mamak is a Tamil term of address for a maternal uncle, and in Malaysia and Singapore it came to name these Indian Muslim cooks and the open-fronted eating houses they keep. Raghavan Iyer, in On the Curry Trail, follows the Indian curry along these sea routes into Southeast Asia, and the mamak stall stands among its clearest results.

The mamak kitchen is a South Indian kitchen translated to a Malay and Chinese market. Its staples are the griddle breads of the Tamil country and the north: roti canai, the flaky, oiled and folded flatbread cooked on a flat iron plate, kin to the parotta of Tamil Nadu and Kerala, and served with a thin dal or a fish or chicken gravy. Thosai and idli are cooked on the same premises, and the batter-based breakfast of the Tamil home is eaten beside the bread of the Malay street. Iyer's account of the curry trail rests on the observation that the dishes of the Indian sauce travelled with the cooks and were then bent to local pantries, and the mamak stall shows this plainly. The rice dishes show the same adaptation. Nasi kandar, the rice of the Penang waterfront, is plain steamed rice taken with a choice of curries, fried chicken, fish and vegetables, the gravies ladled over together so that they mingle on the plate. The name is held to come from the carrying pole, kandar, from which early vendors hung their pots. Beside it stand the biryani of the Muslim kitchen, the mutton and chicken kormas, and the dalcha, a lentil and meat gravy associated with the Indian Muslim table. The local pantry altered the foundations. Coconut milk, lemongrass and the sweetness of Malay cooking entered some gravies, while the Indian base of onion, ginger, garlic, turmeric Curcuma longa, coriander and chilli stayed. Fish head curry, in Singapore and Malaysia, is a South Indian sour and spiced gravy of Kerala and Tamil type, built on tamarind Tamarindus indica, okra and tomato, and cooked around a large fish head; its form was settled in the Straits, not on the Indian coast. The drinks and the hours complete the table. Teh tarik, tea with condensed milk pulled between two vessels until it froths, is the stall's signature, and its pouring follows the long-established Indian habit of cooling and aerating tea. The mamak stall keeps open long hours, often through the night, and serves Malays, Chinese and Indians alike at the same plastic-topped tables. It is therefore one of the few places where the Indian diaspora's cooking is eaten as the everyday food of the whole country.

A meal at a mamak stall is ordered and eaten quickly: bread or rice arrives with small bowls of gravy, and the diner mixes and tears as the food demands. Roti canai is pulled apart by hand and dipped, and the sourness of a fish gravy is set against the sweetness of the tea that follows. The pace and the late hours make the mamak table a daily meeting place in Malaysia and Singapore.