There are long queues on both sides of the road in front of the Kuching Food Festival venue in Padungan, Kuching every night ever since the festival began. The traffic congestion is especially bad on Friday and Saturday nights.
Kuching South City Council (MBKS) must be happy with the good response to one of its popular annual events.Local residents go to the festival to look for their favourite as well as exotic food while tourists go the festival to get a feel of Kuching City, its food, culture and traditions.
There are 29 food stalls at the festival this year but I do not know how many drink stalls there are. One of this year’s attraction is crocodile kompia (Foochow bun).A kompia with three pieces of grilled crocodile meat is being sold for RM10 and the demand is so good that the stall owner can sell up to 400 pieces of crocodile meat daily.
Daily means nightly, because most of the stalls at the Kuching Food Festival open only at night. Cheese sauce and a slice of cucumber are added to the small pieces of crocodile meat stuffed into the kompia before the bun is grilled over a charcoal fire.
The stall owner says he has obtained a licence from the Sarawak Forestry Department to sell the meat which is sourced from licensed crocodile hunters in the state. Some of the crocodiles, it is learnt, come from Samariang, Bako and Matang River – all in Kuching Division. Selling crocodile kompia is an innovative idea. My hats off to the young entrepreneur. Thousands of visitors patronise the festival and new innovations can pull in the crowds and the money. It is reported that many tourists love the crocodile kompia.
However, some locals will not touch crocodile meat because it is taboo for them to do so. If you talk to the Dayaks, particularly the Bidayuhs and Ibans, they have stories about how their ancestors helped the crocodiles and vice versa. In Sarawak, the Sarawak Forestry Department allows culling of crocodiles to prevent their population from getting too large. This year, crocodile kompia is making the news at the Kuching Food Festival. A few years ago, the festival visitors were queuing up for durian crepes and German sausages and could not have enough of them.
When I was a member of the women’s section of the Kuching Hainan Association, I used to gather at the women’s chief house for a few mornings or afternoons, diligently helping to churn out traditional cakes for sale at the Kuching Food Festival. From these sessions, I learnt to improve my skills in making rice dumplings and to wrap the dumplings in banana leaves.
Hainanese wrap their rice dumplings in banana leaves instead of bamboo leaves. Like the Rainforest World Music Festival, which attracted thousands of tourists annually, the Kuching Food Festival is also attracting tourists to the city. Many tourists are timing their visits to the city to coincide with the festival. If you are new to Kuching and love food, do visit the Kuching Food Festival.
It began on July 27 and will end on Aug 19, 2018 at 11pm. Kuching Festival is an annual event organised by Kuching South City Council (MBKS) to commenorate Kuching’s elevation to city status on August 1, 1988 and to boost the local tourism and food industry. This year’s Kuching Food Festival also coincides with Kuching City’s 30th anniversary celebration.
