To many, a slice of kueh lapis is nothing more than a colourful steamed cake - perhaps a pastry reminiscent of days of yore, before the complications of fluffy Western bakes with three different cups of coffee on the side, all accompanied by different water to milk to espresso ratios. Or maybe a childhood surrounded by banana trees, bicycles and the omnipresent sepia filter that seemed to bleed out of photographs and into the very landscape they lived in. But for me, a kueh lapis slice is much less than that, and yet so much more.
In my mind's eye, the taste of kueh lapis is always accompanied by the warm, comforting sensation of my grandfather's hand on mine, grasping with the protectiveness and tenderness that only a grandparent can muster. Kueh lapis was a treat that only my grandfather would buy for me, perhaps because he was the sole person equally enamoured by the colourful pastry display at Bengawan Solo as I. While I ate a slice of kueh lapis today - a little over a week since his passing - I was hit by a sudden wave of nostalgia and longing. For the first time, I was eating the kueh without him by my side. I ate them the way I always had: carefully extricating a layer from the one beneath it, sticking half the layer in my mouth then slowly chewing and swallowing the mound of sweet tapioca flour. Peeling each jewel-bright tone from the next seemed to bring back a rush of memories, each layer unearthing a worn set of innocence that had been previously buried by the convolutions of growing up. Pink. The safety of being held by my grandfather while walking to kindergarten. Green. The crinkle of plastic as I'd try to peel the kueh without touching its sticky surface. White. The excitement of eating something out of my usual home-cooked-food routine, something store-bought. Of simpler times, of quieter days, of a treasured childhood. Funnily enough, the enjoyment I derived from eating kueh lapis was less from the actual eating, and more from the peeling. As a fussy six-year-old child, its taste was nothing spectacular - mouthfuls upon mouthfuls of the same chewy coconut milk flavour - enough, in fact, to make me feel jelak by the time I'd eaten halfway through the kueh. But, oh... the peeling. The very act of gently stripping one whole glutinous layer cleanly off another brought a wealth of satisfaction, fulfilment and intrigue to my young, adolescent mind, which had somehow convinced itself that a kueh lapis layer, in all its flat rectangular glory, was akin to a legal (albeit slightly more flaccid) stick of chewing gum. The rarity of eating something in the likeness of chewing gum gave me a certain thrill, and my enthusiasm for peeling led to my christening of kueh lapis as a make-believe 'chewing gum'. Amused by the overactive imagination of mine, my grandfather took it upon himself to humour me with spontaneous Bengawan Solo trips before school to purchase the 'chewing gum'. Our acquisition of the forbidden goods was conspirational in nature - the evidence of our transgression was wiped out as quickly as it had been obtained, ingested into the stomach of yours truly as we sat on a bench outside Cold Storage. With a kueh in each of our hands, we'd watch the rest of the world go by in a comfortable silence, interspersed only by the occasional exclamation that accompanied a perfectly removed layer. But with a mind fully focused on the intense task of layer-peeling, I didn't realise that the warm presence next to me would one day disappear. Looking back, it is moments like these that I miss the most. Moments that seemed so everyday, so ordinary, that I took them as a given. And yet, though filled with longing I may be for just one more to treasure with the knowledge of it being finite, the carefreeness that fills those times is perhaps what makes them valuable. For to have spent those hours blissfully immersed in simply living framed them with a joyful innocence that can never be tarnished. Of the cool supermarket air-conditioning on a humid day, the starchy taste of coconut milk-infused kueh, and afternoons with just my grandfather and me. Today, eating a slice of kueh lapis is no longer a source of fascination, nor a thrilling, covert operation of stealth - the naivety of childhood has long worn off. But as I routinely chew each sweet, glutinous layer, I am once again reminded of the feelings that I will never let go of: the warmth of family, the solace of those precious afternoons, and my grandfather's boundless love.
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