| October
2005
Burger and coke
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As the economy has grown, so has our girths. In the interest of research,
I put mine at risk. I ate a Ramly Burger.
However, we shall save the best for last. Before we get to the Ramly Burger, I will meander around some other thoughts. About twenty years ago, an American visitor to Singapore shared an observation with me, saying how, having been in Singapore a month, he hadn't seen anyone really obese. Most young men, he said, were especially just his type: slim, almost lithesome. Why do I remember such ordinary remarks? Because in this instance, I had sensed, with not a little panic, that he was coming on to me. But I was not in the least interested in him. So I had to unsheath my secret weapon to fend off the unwanted approach: I engaged him in an intellectual conversation (a sex-killer, that) about genes, diet, physical work and so on. Together with some seat-shifting, I saved my skin, or at least my family honour, for another day. He was right. Twenty years ago, you'd be hard put to find anyone grossly overweight or pathologically obese. At most, Singaporeans were just somewhat chubby. But not anymore. Ride any train, and at some point during your journey, you will see someone whose width begins to equal his height. What is even more shocking is that it is no longer uncommon to see 14 year-old schoolgirls with 80-kg weight, when they're barely 1.5 metres tall. By the time they turn 20, they might well be 100-120kg. One well-known factor is soda drinks. It has long seemed to me highly irresponsible of McDonald's, for example, to sell cola in "Big Gulp" sizes. No sensible adult buys this size, yet all too often unsupervised kids are seen holding this veritable bucket.
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Even this generous allocation of shelf space was not enough. More stock was stacked up elsewhere, for example, selling Coca-Cola in 1.5-litre bottles by the carton-trays (12 bottles per shrink-wrapped tray).
The retail business being what it is, the management would not have allocated so much space to these products unless demand justifies it. Thus, there clearly must be many customers who purchase soft drinks by the cartons. In this supermarket, like most others, people shop for their homes. It boggles my mind to think that families are buying cartons of coke and such drinks to stuff into their refrigerators. What happened to drinking water? And as for tea, I feel so dated to be choosing the brew! We're going to have an epidemic of chronic diseases before long. Excess weight is associated with heart disease, strokes, diabetes and many other conditions. * * * * * Obesity is not equally distributed among the three major racial groups in Singapore. From the Singapore National Health Survey 2004, the Body Mass Index for the various groups are as follows: Percentage of each racial group aged 18-69 with BMI>=30
As you can see, obesity, here defined as anyone with a Body Mass Index [1] of at least 30, is particularly common among Malay males and among Malay and Indian females. Straight away readers will say, it's the curry what's done it. It's more than just the curry. It has to do with acquired taste. If you look at the patrons in KFC or Pizza Hut, you will see a disproportionate number of Malays. They seem to like deep fried food, which tends to be high in fat, or things like pizza, which is also full of fat. Go around any humble hawker centre [2], and whenever you see a stall selling deep-fried chicken wings, you will also see that a disproportionate number of their customers are Malays. Taste is an acquired preference, and perhaps it is in the culture of Singaporean Malay and Indian families to prefer foods with intense flavours. Spices will certainly do the trick, but equally, fat and salt boost the sensation of taste as well, for these are well-known flavour-enhancers. How many people will choose a plain, salt-free baked potato over french fries, for example? Doesn't fried rice always taste better than steamed rice? If the culture is one that does not value clean, subtle taste sensations, then there will be a tendency as disposable income increases, to consume more and more rich foods. * * * * * The Ramly Burger was first created in Malaysia. It became such a hit, I head about it long before I ever saw one. Recently, it has made its appearance in pasar malams here. A pasar malam is a night market that periodically pops up in our suburban towns. Vendors set up pitches selling children's clothes, kitchenware, bedding, pirated DVDs, and food. From my observation the name Ramly Burger is tightly controlled; perhaps the original Malaysian owners have trade-marked it. It's not as if anyone can set up a pitch claiming to sell the Ramly Burger. Whether at this night market or the other, they seem to be producing a very similar product in almost identical ways. It's probably some kind of franchise. I have noticed that the stalls are invariably manned by Malays, and well over 95% of the patrons are Malays. For some reason, the Chinese and the Indians, despite together making up 85% of the population, don't care for this type of burger. Why? I asked myself. I stood about to watch how a Ramly Burger was prepared. It involved at least 2 persons working side by side, each minding a hotplate. The first person would take some frozen patties out of a plastic wrap and cook them on his hotplate. The second person would observe how many patties his or her partner was working on, and would fry a similar number of scrambled eggs. When the first guy's patties were ready, they would be transferred over to the second person, who would fold a disc of egg over a each meat patty. He would let the combination sit on the hotplate for a while more, perhaps to allow the two parts to adhere through heat. Meanwhile the third guy would be busy spreading margarine on buns. On some occasions the second guy would take the halved buns and place them briefly on the hot plates too. Perhaps he wanted to toast them a little, or just to warm them up, I wasn't too sure. He didn't consistently do the same to all buns, so perhaps it was only by special request. But no doubt, when the halves of the bun were placed face-down on the hotplate for even the briefest of time, they would surely soak up oil and fat. When the egg and meat combo was ready, it was transferred into the bun together with some pickles, and a liberal dose of ketchup and chilli sauce added. One bite into it and I knew I will never again pay good money for it. While there was a rich sensation of tomato and chilli, there was little else. The bun was tired and greasy, but worst of all, the patty was unidentifiable. Was it beef? Was it chicken? Turkey? I went back to look, this time more closely at the frozen patties. It was none of the above. It looked more like a thick slice of sausage. If you think ground beef is poor meat passing off as fillet, ultra-homogenised sausage (fat, collagen and filler, maybe a bit of protein) is even worse! What was in my mouth? Intense sensations from the chilli, the tomato and the pickled cucumber (I could hardly taste the egg). Loads of grease swirling around these. Plus some other stuff that was once the bread and the patty, that had a little texture, but no taste. Yet Ramly Burgers sell like the proverbial hot cakes wherever they are found. Still, their reputation spreads far and wide. Clearly lots of people think it's the greatest food invention since deep-fried chicken wings. Heaven help our cholesterol level, blood
pressure and waistlines! © Yawning Bread
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Footnotes
Addenda None
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