Century-old egg beater living up to its reputation

What say you on the issue below?

NOT so long ago when my sisters and I were doing a spot of spring cleaning in our kitchen back home in Kluang, Johor, we discovered that my mother had kept out of sight a few brass kitchen tools, which were once used by her grandmother and aunt.

The spiral but sturdy brass whisk, stood out among the old kitchen utensils and upon picking it up, I realised why the newer stainless whisk, which we had several, had stolen the spotlight from the brass egg beater.

The old tool was heavy and simply not practical to use, if you wanted to whisk up a few eggs.

Old is gold: The modern stainless steel whisk (background) is now the preferred kitchen tool used to beat eggs while the traditional brass whisk remains a tool from the past.

The old whisk was one of the few kitchen tools, my mother Rose Melton had salvaged from her grandmother’s house in Sungai Korok, Alor Star, Kedah.

My mother said the whisk was used by people in the olden days to prepare kuih bahulu and kuih bangkit especially during festive seasons.

“This traditional whisk is more than 100 years old and it is still very hardy and capable of whisking up eggs like it used to.

“But unlike the modern whisk which come in various sizes and can be used to beat up an egg or two, this old whisk requires many eggs in a pot for it to be of any use,” my mother said.

My mother recalls watching her grandmother beating up eggs with sugar in a huge earthernware pot and once the eggs were creamy, she would scoop a bowl out and mix in flour before placing small amounts of the batter to the bahulu tray.

“We didn’t have ovens back then so the bahulu was cooked in a self-made stove which was our version of an oven and we used coal and coconut husks to moderate the heat,” she said.

No easy feat: Anne Saroja uses the old-fashioned whisk to beat up eggs in an earthern pot in Kluang.

My grandmother ran a sundry shop then and my grandaunt, a good cook was often seen making local cakes, puddings and jelly, the recipes of which she never shared with anyone and she happily took to her grave.

My dad’s sister, K. Anne Saroja who was visiting us at the time of our cleaning mission also shared similar stories on how the traditional whisk was used at her home in Sungai Petani.

And since we had a huge old earthern pot at hand, we decided to put the old whisk to use again.

As we took turns to whisk the eggs, I realised that women back then had strong arms as whisking a tray full of eggs was no easy feat with the heavy whisk.

But as my mother had predicted, the old kitchen tool came out of its slumber and did a wonderful job of beating up the eggs till they were creamy and frothy.

We used the eggs to make trays of kuih bahulu which were popped into the oven.

It was just too much work to look for charcoal and coconut husks to make a makeshift oven in our garden!

Once the little cakes were out of the oven, the old whisk was washed, wiped and put away safely with my mother assured that one of us would have it in our safekeeping and hold on to it with fond memories.