Walking down the Memory Lane: The Women's Institute Club

~ Mom's Journal ~

Members of Women’s Institute Club

Growing up in a small town my siblings and I often watched our mother went out with some of the aunties in our area to attend the Saturday weekly cooking class. It was held at the Women’s Institute Club. We didn’t know it then but apparently the women’s organization, the National Association of Women’s Institute in West Malaysia (NAWIM) was formed in 1952 and concerned with social welfare matters. The organization catered to rural Malay women with the objectives of raising their standard of living, improving their knowledge in home economics and encouraging women to work together. The organization’s activities included organizing nursery classes, setting up co-operatives , undertaking food catering, providing foster homes and keeping livestock (cit. Saliha Hassan, Meredith Leigh Weiss, 2004, Social Movement Malaysia) .

Keeping livestock? I remember food catering for special functions but not keeping livestock. As for co-operatives, there was a monthly gathering of a group of ladies for an activity called “main kutu”. I think it functions as an informal co-operative activity back in the early 60’s. The ladies were supportive of one another whereby if any one of them faced a financial crisis the other members in the group would allow her to get the lump sum money first. The others would then queue patiently for their turn at the end of each month. It normally comprised of a small group of 10 or 12 people with small monthly contributions of about 30 ringgit per person.

The practice of “main kutu” has ceased as it is now considered illegal under the Akta (Larangan) Kumpulan Wang Kutu 1971 [Akta 28].

As for weekly cooking class, members with good cooking skills would take turn to demonstrate and teach the class. Our mother was one of them. I found my mother’s recipe book with a compilation of almost 100 recipes. A must have recipe would be the traditional Malay cuisine recipe of “Ayam Percik”. Ayam Percik is a delicious, sweet and tender grilled chicken splashed with coconut milk gravy to keep it moist and full of flavour.

Ayam Percik

Ayam Percik recipe

Apart from the traditional Malay recipes there are also many spritz cookies recipes. Spritz cookie has a rich buttery texture that is tender crisp. “Spritz” is a German word for “spritzen” meaning “to squirt”. Our mother would use the Spritz Cookie Press to squirt the cookie dough. Spritz cookies contain the basic ingredients of butter, sugar, eggs, flour and vanilla extract. The cookies may be presented in many shapes such as circles, squares, ovals, rings and pretzel-like forms.

Spritz Cookie Press

Various shapes of butter spritz cookies

Other than the famous traditional cookie called “kuih semperit” our favorite cookie is the wreath shape spritz cookie. It is vanilla flavoured butter cookie topped with green sugar crystals and decorated with slices of almond. My brother Azam said, this cookie is also known as "Kueh Telinga Awang". Let's just say he knows the origin of this name.