Interesting encounters at Weekend Market

THE popular Weekend Jungle Market at Centre Point Miri is packing them in with thousands turning up to pick the choicest jungle produce, delivered overland the night before from Murum, Sungei Teru, Tinjar, Bakong.

Many of the vendors even spend the night on Friday along the five-foot way, eagerly waiting for the break of dawn.

Others arrive as early as 5am on Sat in their Hilux or even a Kancil. Just after sunrise, when the coffeeshops start opening for business, the backlanes behind Agro Bank come alive as vendors stake their places with bricks, umbrellas and chairs.

This can also be called the Weekend Baram Valley Fresh Market where jungle vegetables, game meat, fish, birds and medicinal plants from the valley are sold. There are no banners or signboards but Mirians know where to go.

 

Weekend of discovery

I went on a journey of discovery with a friend, cameras slung over our shoulders and baskets in hand, early one Sunday morning.

Every weekend, people from different walks of life look for fresh jungle produce, food and interesting souvenirs to buy. Some are in a hurry while others stroll among the colourful rows of tents.

Madam Marina, a housewife, told thesundaypost she liked bringing her children to the Market, noting that through such outings, they could see for themselves how the vendors worked and interacted with their customers. Whatever is spoken between seller and buyer becomes embedded in the young minds.

“I hope they can observe how adults trade.  As a regular customer, I find some of the traders kind and honest but truth be told, a few try selling poorer quality produce to some senior citizens.

“I’m showing my children life in the market place – the good and the not so good. Hopefully, they will grow up to be discerning adults,” she said.

 

Consumer awareness

A “No photographs please” signboard could be seen at some of the stalls. And when some of the vendors saw our cameras, they asked “Apa mahu photo” and shoo-ed us away even before we could ask for permission to take some snapshots.

The general rule is to ask for the vendors’ permission before photographing their produce.

The more sporting among them didn’t mind having their photos taken but a few weren’t too accommodating when asked about their goods, putting potential customers off.

Many of the vendors have learnt to shy away from cameras because they are aware of the negative effects of social media. Generally, hawkers trading in exotic meat, especially of snakes or crocodiles, are avoided.

 

All sorts of veges

Jungle vegetables can be divided into three categories — leaves from wild trees, leaves from vines and young wild fruits which can be cooked.

Daun Sabung is from a sapling about six-foot tall. Growing wild in secondary forests around towns and villages, it has a sweet and pleasant taste.

The leaves are known to have curative properties and in demand among the Ibans and Indonesians.

Another favourite wild leaf is rambing growing from a small vine. It’s sweet and tender. In fact, many people say it’s better than cangkok manis. Every forager can recognise a rambing vine when he or she sees one.

One wild fruit which can become a delectable vegetable is the pedada fruit. Eaten with spicy and sour sambal, it’s a real rice pusher and a favourite of the Melanaus and coastal Ibans.

Since time immemorial, food foragers have had to contend with not only wild animals and  snakes but also a challenging wilderness when collecting vegetables from secondary jungles.

At the Market, hawkers prepare “meram hearts” from meram palms in full view of customers. The palms are peeled to expose the inner “tender hearts.” The Ibans usually make good soup from this palm heart.

You can imagine food foragers wading knee-deep to get to the meram palms which only grow in swampy water-logged land. Fearful thoughts spring to mind at the realisation that snakes, especially cobras, inhabit the very swamps meram palms are found.

 

Fruits and beans

Another fruit which is dangerous to collect is ridang. This fruit attracts cobras, so foragers have to be very careful.

Petai is one of best known jungle beans in Sarawak. Dubbed the smelly bean, its price has gone up and today, we have to pay through our nose for a plate of sambal petai at high-end restaurants.

The wild embawang or bambangan mango,  flavourful and fibrous, is good for digestion.

Prices may vary, depending on where you buy.

An embawang tree can easily produce 400 fruits when in season. The tree is often more than 150-foot tall. Once the fruit drops, it’s already too ripe and not really good any more.

To eat the fruit, peel the skin after making four to five cuts from top to bottom. It’s a good fruit-vegetable any day!

The cempedak is another fruit which can be eaten as a vegetable. The young fruit is shredded and cooked with sambal or in coconut soup with some spices added. It has also become a hotel restaurant dish.

Similarly, the terap or lumok is best eaten as a young fruit vegetable. Endemic in Borneo, the ripe fruit is sweet and tasty.

 

Meat and fish

The vendors at the Market were ever ready to ply their salted pork from home-reared or kampung pigs and wild boars for those who came to look.

The chicken stall offered two choices of cooked chicken — soy sauce marinated smoked chicken and white boiled chicken.

It would have been nice if the hawkers had worn plastic gloves or used tongs to pick up the chicken meat. It would also have been nice if the pieces of sliced chicken were not left exposed on the tables.

Birds caught from the wild like wild pigeons were sold in cages alongside quails and their eggs.

Exotic jungle or bush meats came mainly from snakes and live fish from the kampungs such as ikan tioman, haruan, enseluai, semah, tapah and bitter fish from the river. Fresh ikan enseluai were best sellers – all ready to be deep fried.

A stall that attracted a lot of onlookers was one that sold crabs, favoured as special family treats.

Many people were also intrigued by the strangely shaped fish called belida which is special to the people of the Baram and mainly found in Loagan Bunut.

Much sought after for making fish balls, the live fish, as some like to believe, can flash lucky numbers on its scales – no doubt, an ability that has many a lottery player hooked.

Gaming predictions aside, the meat of belida is very tasty albeit quite bony.

No native markets can do justice to their name without wild fern tops and mushrooms. The Weekend Jungle Market offers plenty of these two fast-selling items.

A vendor from Limbang and a few others were selling home-made parangs or machetes. A good blade costs more than RM150 each while a small one, used by women to chop bony meat and small trees, can fetch RM80 apiece.

 

Making it lively

The city council and the chambers of commerce can help to put up colourful banners to make the Market lively and even give it festive atmosphere.

Farmers markets in the west have become very trendy and popular. Consumers are now more aware of their food sources and like to get closer to the producers. A visit to any farmers market is like a trip to a natural environment and a journey of revelation.

Creating such awareness in Miri would be a natural step to show city folks how blessed they are to be able to get natural produce from the environment. It’s totally different from buying stuff at supermarkets.

Miri-bound rural farmers who help to create awareness about our natural food sources, should be appreciated.

One more thing – the Market can do with mobile toilets, especially when there are no friendly coffeeshops around for adults and children to answer nature’s call.

There was an incident in China where a rural migrant could not find a toilet to ease herself.

A video about her and her son has gone viral.

Should we allow this to happen in a friendly Resort City like Miri? No, of course not!