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.
4 Responses
you know there’re actually quite a few stalls in the old airport road market that ‘ta paus’ food in or peh hio. yummy!
Posted on January 26th, 2007 at 3:24 am
Hi. I have also blogged about this earlier here and Posted on January 26th, 2007 at 7:44 am
there’s a Daily Come Hokkien Mee at blk 127 Toa Payoh Lor 1, they sell it wif or pei hio as well. some coffeeshops and food courts are picking up the use of or pei hio, shld not be tough to find liao
Posted on January 27th, 2007 at 4:53 pm
There’s a Hokkien Mee shop in Serangoon Central (coffeshop Opp NTUC) that uses the leaf too..
used to be the whole leaf, but due to cost, they use plastic plates now but insert a smaller piece of the leaf between the plate and the Mee..
Posted on January 31st, 2007 at 9:02 am
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