Orh Pei Hio

Posted by Slow under Food, Lifestyle, Reflections, Traditions
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I finally solved a mystery that’s been bothering me for a couple of months: I’ve always remembered the days of my youth when we ate hor fun out of some light tan coloured leathery wrapping ‘paper’ that felt like dried leaf of some sort. All my mother remembered was it being called or-peh hio. Surprisingly, I couldn’t find it in Burkill’s Dictionary of the Economic Products of the Malay Peninsula. The breakthrough came a few months later when I found out its Malay name is upih.

However, when the dictionaries said that upih was a bird, the Milky Stork (Mycteria cinerea), I got sidetracked for a while.

It was only when I picked up Kamus Bahasa Melayu Nusantara (Bandar Seri Begawan: Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka Brunei, 2003) that I found the definition: “upin 1 pangkal tangkai pelepah pinang dsb yg lebar dan nipis: dodol dibungkus dgn ~ pinang.” In English, the leaf sheath of the pinang or betelnut palm (Areca catechu)!

Now to find a stall that still ‘ta-pau’s food in or-peh hio.