Apparently Malacca is famous for its chicken rice balls. I had no idea. I only started to vaguely realize that everyone comes to Malacca to eat chicken rice balls when we had to jostle our way through a bustling crowd just to get into a winding line that lead into an even more crowded restaurant, presumably because it was the biggest chicken rice ball restaurant on the heritage block.
I was also very mistaken about what the chicken rice balls actually WERE. Is it just me, or is the term 'chicken rice balls' somewhat misleading? Are they chicken? Are they rice? We know they're balls: but balls of chicken AND rice? Or chicken OR rice? Or 40% chicken 60% rice or vice versa or chicken flavoured rice or rice flavoured chicken?! The possibilities are mind boggling. Naturally, my boggled mind immediately and wishfully went for the first option (because it is the most awesome, obviously: why, yes, I WOULD like to have an entire mini chicken rice dish mouthful in one ball, please), so I was more than a little disappointed to discover that the chicken rice balls were actually just rice balls, albeit balls made from the rice used in chicken rice.
I was also disappointed by the actual balls. I couldn't get over my initial well-that's-just-WEIRD reaction to eating rice formed into tiny spheres. I mean I don't like bubur (so nay to rice in porridge), ketupat (nay also to compressed rice), or pulut (hell to the nay to glutinous rice) so it didn't come as a surprise that rice balls evidently also do not do it for me.
I think of these chicken rice balls as a result of the hyperdiversity of Malacca's historical culture and aftereffect of having endured Hindu, Muslim, Catholic, Malay, Chinese, Arab, Portuguese, Dutch and British influences in the space of just six centuries. My theory is that Malaccan food is now having some kind of culture shock hangover that is manifested in the rolling of rice into balls. (BALLS, people. Why would possess you to want to roll RICE into BALLS? It serves no function. The balls aren't bite size, so they don't become any easier to eat. They totally lose the chicken rice flavour, so the core of the balls just become bland. And they were CHEWY!) This is clearly a culinary cry for attention. Perhaps the equivalent of teenage arm cutting or myspace suggestive-picture-whoring, but in any case, an unmistakeable attempt to highlight its colorful cultural ancestry in order to distinguish itself from its peers by saying look at me! I'm different and unique, I have this wacky take on a beloved Southeast Asian food dish!
Yes, chicken rice balls are that addled Malaysian teenager who speaks with an MTV-honed American twang despite not really speaking proper English, who is desperately seeking to leech off perceived "cooler" Western cultures and as a result morphs into something wholly unique and amalgamated, but yet, not cool. Not cool at all.
