Singaporeans are consummate foodies, but we don't seem to care much about how we call our food dishes. Roti prata, a type of flatbread usually eaten with a curry dip, is one of favourite tummy yummies. I am also fussy about proper word usage -- one of the reasons why I started this blog (apart from a compulsion to share corny jokes).
So, this letter below by someone named Gorain Jagadish Chandra to ST (28 July) -- a response to an earlier commentary piece -- piqued my interest:
I CAN understand the feelings of Mr Asad Latif when he describes roti prata as an unbearable tautology because prata is a kind of roti (“Confessions of a former foreign misfit”; July 13).
As a native of the Indian state of West Bengal, I too felt very much the same when I was new here.
I arrived in Singapore in 1992, went on to obtain my permanent residence and, finally, citizenship.
What is called roti prata in Singapore is known as prata in West Bengal.
Roti in India means Indian handmade bread as well, and is also called “chapati”.
So, initially, I used to wonder about the sense in calling it roti prata when roti and prata mean one and the same thing; I could not grasp the redundancy.
The “bread-bread”(roti prata) handle favoured by Singaporeans started making sense when I became familiar with things Singapore, that is, when I picked up the rudiments of Malay.
Whereas I refer to my mother tongue as “Bengali” and not as “Bengali language” (which it would be in Malay), Malays usually refer to theirs as Bahasa Melayu (Malay language); that is to say, what something is, followed by what type of something it is.
Prata being a roti, should therefore be roti prata in Malay. I do not know if this is indeed the reason for calling what is known simply as prata, roti prata, or whether it is, as Mr Latif, preferred to describe it, a tautology.
But it started making sense to me and once that happens, acceptance comes next, which is, in my view, the basic principle behind integration.
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I am not so sure if one can extend the argument above to societal integration, something that is certainly fraught with more complexity. But at least I now know that roti prata = bread-bread!
But I do agree that there is a penchant for perpetuating or inventing redundant labels here: witness the plethora of ads offering "free gifts". Hossan Leong is famous for his "double confirm" (confirm, confirm?) and one of our landmarks is Bukit Timah Hill (bukit = hill in Malay). I am sure there are other examples, etc, etc.
Three more points. One is that across the Causeway, the Malaysians call this dish "roti canai" (pronounced "chanai"). There is some debate over this labelling too. Some say the "canai" part derived from the dish's home source in south India, the city of Chennai. Others say it is from the Malay word for "to stretch", which brings me to my second point.
The lump of flour used for making prata has first to be flipped, expertly, of course. How fluffy that prata that you eat is depends on the skill of the "flipper".
Third point: that picture above used by ST is actually a murtabak -- essentially, a bulkier version of prata that has filling such as minced chicken, mutton, sardines or whatever one wants to creatively put into the murtabak skin.
To find out more about roti prata aka roti canai, see this entry by one well-known food blogger:
http://ieatishootipost.sg/2010/06/how-to-make-roti-prata-aka-roti-canai.html
Do check out the videos that show how the prata dough might be flipped.
[Liane, go for it! Next time I'm in Sydney, homemade prata for breakfast, hor!]
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Prata footnote:
I think I know why I am so besotted with prata. When I was growing up as a little boy in Pulau Bukom, come Sundays, my father would bicycle to the shops and bring back freshly made prata for all of us. Before I was allowed as an older child to eat it with curry, I ate it with sprinkled sugar as a toddler. Maybe that explains why I needed to visit the dentist since childhood!
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