Cakoi Came About Because People Were Protesting Someone They Hated
Youtiao, yau char kuai, cakoi… A fried dough fritter by any name would taste just as delicious.
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Yaucakoi, or you tiao, or cakoi, or Chinese donuts, are a delicious fried snack even if no one can quite agree on what to call it.
For the sake of simplicity, most Malaysians know the dough fritter as cakoi. But did you know that the history of cakoi came from a place of anger and spite?
Yau char gwai– or, Oil Fried Ghost
The written Chinese characters for the snack is 油炸鬼 (you zha gui), also literally translated as Oil Fried Ghost. (Ghost here also means ‘devil’, or ‘spirit’.)
It might seem like a quirk of translations resulting in a funny name, but the history behind it actually speaks of the intention… to fry ghosts.
(Credit: Baidu)
In this case, ‘ghost’ refers to a man named Qin Hui, who was a Chinese official during the Song Dynasty. He had schemed and plotted to have a beloved general Yue Fei captured, thrown in jail, and executed for a vague, baseless reason (sort of like a misuse of our own SOSMA).
His mistake was underestimating how much people adored Yue Fei, who was (and still is) an icon of patriotism and a war hero. When word began to spread of Yue Fei’s ungracious end, the people were absolutely furious at Qin Hui.
Apparently, a street vendor was so angry that he moulded a human shape out of dough and fried it in hot oil, all the while shouting about “oil-frying Qin Hui”. He then ate the whole thing out of spite, sort of like a voodoo doll but edible.
However, most people were still afraid to publicly criticize the government and a high-ranking official, so they changed the name to “Oil-Fry Hui” and added another human shaped dough signifying his wife so they could curse and eat her, too. (Poor wife.)
(Credit: Brian Jeffery Beggerly/Flickr)
Eventually, because human shapes were too difficult to mould, the snack was changed to just two long strips (still signifying Qin Hui and his wife), and the name slowly evolved to become the cakoi we know today.
So good you can even eat it on its own
Despite its exciting and treasonous beginnings, cakoi is a truly delicious side-dish or snack. After all, it’s deep-fried dough: crunch, airy, and so savoury!
In Malaysia, it’s commonly eaten as-is, or also commonly paired with porridge, soy bean, or bak kut teh. There are also variations of cakoi to be eaten as-is, such as those topped with savoury sesame seeds or stuffed with sweet red bean paste.
(Credit: K Tao/Flickr)
Perhaps next time, if you’re ever angry at someone, you can just imagine their face on your cakoi before you bite into it.
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