LANGKAWI: Fancy this! Hollywood personality Mel Gibson once remarked that ‘laksa’ was one of his favourite foods. This Australian-born film actor/director also claims to be able to prepare this Malaysian dish.
Laksa is a popular spicy noodle soup which combines the Chinese and Malay cultures found in Malaysia. There are two basic types of laksa – the curry laksa and the asam laksa. The noodles are usually made from rice.
There is also a distinct variant, called ‘laksam,’ from Kelantan, where the gravy is made from coconut milk mixed with fish fillet.
Served when it is still hot, laksa is a ‘must eat’ dish when one is visiting places such as Kedah, Pulau Pinang, Johor, Kelantan and even Sarawak.
Laksa is a unique dish. This rice noodle dish from a particular state will show some variations when it is prepared in other states, while still retaining certain common features.
For example, the laksa from Kelantan tends to be sweeter than that from Melaka, which typically has the ‘nyonya’ flavour.
Laksa, which was originally a simple village dish, has now graduated to featuring on the menus of five-star hotels.
The Langkawi Development Authority (Lada), in an effort to attract more tourists to the resort island, organised a three-day Langkawi International Laksa Carnival (Lilac) last month.
Apart from the country’s attractive locations and culture, Malaysia’s local delicacies have a pull factor that attracts tourists. A report has revealed that Malaysia’s food and beverage sector contributed 17.2 per cent of the income generated by the tourism sector last year.
Tourism Minister Datuk Seri Ng Yen Yen was reported as saying that during 2011, the tourism industry generated more than RM1 billion per week, and the food and beverage industry generated RM9.72 billion (17.2 per cent) of the annual income from tourism.
Hence, the ministry has organised various food-based carnivals, including the Fabulous Food 1Malaysia event, as a platform to promote exotic local dishes among foreign visitors.
The usual food spreads include delicacies such as rendang, traditional cakes, lemang, satay (grilled meat on skewers) and other items, but during Lilac this year, the focus was on laksa, and not on other delicacies.
One may ask, “What is so good about it? Why laksa?”
“Why not? Name one dish that is well known among the states, and surely it is laksa,” remarked the chief executive officer of Lada, Tan Sri Khalid Ramli, when Bernama asked him why laksa was selected for the carnival.
The word ‘laksa’ is believed to have originated from the Sanskrit word ‘laksha,’ which means ‘a lot’ – obviously referring to the numerous ingredients and condiments used to prepare this dish.
The inaugural event of the Laksa International Carnival was a gathering of laksa connoisseurs who came to dish out laksa from Pahang, Pulau Pinang, Perlis, Kelantan, Sarawak, Langkawi and Thailand.
The carnival was an initiative to feature Langkawi among the top 10 tourism destinations of the world by 2015, in line with the Langkawi Tourism Blueprint launched by the prime minister last year.
Langkawi’s popularity as a tourism destination will be enhanced through the addition of infrastructural and transportation facilities that will generate greater tourism- and non-tourism-based earnings.
Khalid further remarked that carnivals like Lilac not only add value to Langkawi but also serve as an international platform for promoting traditional dishes.
“Lada will continue to organise international-level traditional cuisine festivals to promote Langkawi,” he asserted, adding that the visitor turnout at the event was encouraging.
Although some quarters opined that there was ‘nothing international’ about the laksa carnival, which included only the Thai laksa as a foreign variant, Khalid believes that the international element lies not in the flavour but in the preparation.
He added that laksa has been adapted and suited to various international flavours, even though the basic ingredients remain the same.
