Chestnut Vendor in Yuexiu Park (Buah Berangan)

When I was a young girl living on Jalan Mohd Akil, my mother used to take me round the road corner (Batu Pahat is very very small, like Taman Midah only) to Odeon Cinema where there there were street vendors selling roasted chestnuts (see picture below)



In Malay it is called buah berangan, in fact I had to look up the Malay word first, before I know it is called chestnuts!!! To me it was called "Kau Lak"
This is the way to cook Kau Lak. Fry with with some black stuff. The above picture is actually roasted chestnuts from Melbourne.

As we were leaving Yuexiu Park to get to our bus rushing for our next venue (we were always rushing here and there even though our group consisted only of our family members!!) I saw this lady pushing a makeshift cart frying chestnuts like I used to see in my childhood. Eversince I got married and came to KL I have not seen this for more than 30 years.

This spunky lady was frying chestnuts in the middle of the busy road and if you see the picture before this, she must have dodged heavy traffic to get here manouevering her hot kuali and homemade stove.

The chestnuts are fried in some black substance (I still have not found out what that is) and I can remember the taste of childhood. It was very expensive back then, and Mum only bought it for us as a treat.

I would have loved to buy a packet from her, but like I told you, we were in a hurry.

So, even from the bus window, I took her picture. Everyone walked past her, and no one bought any.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chestnut

Asal Usul Buah Berangan

Buah berangan ditanam di kebanyakan tempat di seluruh China, antaranya yang paling banyak termasuklah kawasan di provinsi Hebei dan Shandong. Buah berangan yang dihasilkan di Tai'an, Shandong amat terkenal kerana rasanya manis dan sedap. Buah berangan di Shandong dijadikan "makanan khusus untuk maharaja" sejak dulu kala lagi, iaitu sejak zaman Dinasti Jin dan Dinasti Yuan dalam sejarah China. Sekarang, jumlah eksportnya mencapai lebih seratus juta kilogram pada setiap tahun.