Vegetarian food fest coming up
As any Chinese, especially a Penangite, worth his salt would know, after the conclusion of the Mooncake / Lantern Festival, it is time for the week-long vegetarian food fest!
Yep, Monday is the start of the Nine Emperor Gods Festival where the Chinese celebrate the event the only way they know how…FOOD! Err…of course, they also throng the temples to offer prayers and whatnots lar…heheh…
Still, as far as I remember, this festival has always meant a whole load of vegetarian food will be sold for more than a week. Nine days to be exact. I used to love going to the makeshift stalls set up along Madras Lane to test out the various creative vegetarian food on sale.
Sadly, over the years, the food quality have deteriorated and the prices have increased! Since it is a once a year ‘business’ for some of them, the hawkers seemed to think it is alright that they apply the samurai sword when fixing prices for their foods…cut-throat prices lah. It used to be that I could get a decent full meal with less than RM5 for rice, snacks, drinks and even desserts, now, you’d be even lucky to get a plate of rice with some dishes for RM5!
Also, despite the foods being vegetarian and all, most aren’t very healthy so don’t think that you spend the whole nine days paying exhorbitant prices for small mouthfuls of oily food will make you healthier. Most of the foods are swimming in oil and though it’s vegetable oil, too much oil is still not a good thing okay? And then there are the loads of preserved vegetarian foods that were made to look and taste like meat, chicken, fish, cuttlefish…etc..etc… Too much preservatives aren’t good either. Let’s not forget the amount of salt and MSG they dump into most of the foods!
Anyway, there are still some stalls with reasonably priced and quite good vegetarian food during this nine-day festival. All you need to do is to look for them! And it’s not necessarily at Madras Lane since there will be makeshift stalls selling vegetarian food practically everywhere.
The festival starts on Sept 29 and ends on Oct 7.
Oh, and one more thing, be prepared for rainy days throughout the period. It ALWAYS rained during the Nine Emperor Gods festival, it is only a matter of how much and how long. So, remember to bring a raincoat and umbrella along with you.
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