Upper Sec/Comprehension – Malaysian Roti

Xtraordinaire Achievers & Advisors

The Indian Roti that became

Malaysia’s National Bread
By Yi Jun Loh

Roti canai, despite its Indian name, ingredients, and links to the Tamil people of Southern India, is a
bread born in Malaysia.

1 It’s no surprise that roti canai gets mistaken as one of India’s legendary breads. Its
flattened, disc-like shape is similar to parottas and chapatis, and its ingredients—maida flour
and a touch of ghee—are unmistakably Indian, much like its name. But ask for a roti canai in
Mumbai or Kerala and all you will get is a quizzical shake of the head. While roti canai has
Indian roots, it was a child of Malaysia, through Tamil immigrants. And within the past
century, it has grown to be Malaysia’s unofficial national bread through a combination of
colonialism, cultural assimilation, and the country’s pluralist palate.

2 In its most basic form, roti canai is an unleavened bread made from maida flour (a low-
protein wheat flour similar to cake flour), water, and a bit of oil. The dough is first stretched
until thin and translucent, and often flipped repeatedly in the air, like a matador twirling his
cape. Christina Arokiasamy, author of The Malaysian Kitchen, explains that in South India,
dough is formed on a flat surface, but Malaysia’s roti canai differs as it is “flipped and spun in
the air, akin to making pizza,” earning it the moniker “the flying bread.” It is then folded back
onto itself, trapping bulbous pockets of air within, before it is stretched a second time and
slapped onto a hot plancha glistening with ghee.

3 After just a minute or two of frying, it transforms into a flaky, pillowy flatbread with a
scallion-pancake-like exterior—crispy, savory, and aromatic—but with an inside closer to the
chewy, fluffy inner layers of a croissant. And often, as Arokiasamy recalls from childhood,
they come wrapped in a sheet of Malaysian newspaper, a parallel to British fish and chips.

4 Like much of Malaysia’s multicultural cuisine, roti canai has roots in British colonialism. In
the late 1900s, labourers from the Southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu (then known as the
Madras Presidency of British India) were brought to West Malaysia (called Malaya at the
time) under colonial rule. They were collectively known as Indian Muslims, or as they’re
colloquially termed, mamaks. With mamak culture, came many hybridized dishes (much like
the rest of Malaysian cuisine born from Chinese and Hindu immigrants) like dals thickened
with coconut milk, chicken curries scented with Malaysian pandan and kerisik (fried coconut
paste), and nasi kandar (a modular meal of rice with various curries and side dishes). Then, of
course, there’s roti canai, which Arokiasamy calls “Indian immigrants’ great culinary
contribution to Malaysia.” Because like their makers, roti canai were uprooted and brought
to a new country, but with time, both have inculcated themselves into the fabric of Malaysian
culture.
5
Walk into any mamak diner, and a waiter will stroll up to your table, no menu in hand,
expecting you to order one type of roti canai amongst an infinite set that all Malaysians seem
to have memorized—whether it’s stuffed with roughly brunoised red onions, eggs, or slivers
of canned tuna. Others utilize the crisped-up dough as a carrier for other ingredients, like roti
maggi (chow-mein-like fried noodles folded into the bread), roti banjir, literally meaning
“flood bread” (a roti canai soaked and served in a deluge of Malay chicken curry), and roti
Beckham—more akin to Western-style breakfast sandwiches, with scrambled eggs, ham,
 Upper Sec/Comprehension – Malaysian Roti
Xtraordinaire Achievers & Advisors

6 cheese, and a liberal helping of mayonnaise.

Like croissants and Wonderbread, roti canai fits right into a family of breads that take on
sugar just as well. Stuff in a handful of chopped fresh bananas and you have roti pisang.
Spread on a heap of ghee and sugar before folding the dough for a roti boom, named for the
explosion of calories. For Malaysia’s answer to pain au chocolat, sprinkle some Milo on top.
And for a roti spread thinner than one-ply Kleenex, look for roti tisu (a Malay loan word for
tissue). It’s crisped up on the plancha, then coated with palmfuls of sugar, and often made so
theatrically large the finished product is served on two trays.
7
It is these riotous inventions, these multicultural mashups, these infinite variants stemming
from this one bread—this is what has evolved the roti canai from its Indian origin and colonial
roots into what it is today: a thoroughbred Malaysian bread.

Taken from https://www.tastecooking.com/indian-roti-became-malaysias-national-bread/

Read the article above and answer the following questions.

A IDENTIFYING MAIN IDEA - What is the main idea of every paragraph? The 1 st and 7th have been
done for you.

Paragraph 1 Roti canai’s origin

Paragraph 2
Paragraph 3
Paragraph 4
Paragraph 5
Paragraph 6
Paragraph 7 The Malaysian bread

B Provide short answers to the following questions, in your own words where possible.

1. Name the ingredients needed to make roti canai. …...............................................................

2. Name one similarity between roti canai, parottas and chapatis?
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
3. Name one difference in doing the roti canai compared to those in South India.
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
4. Who brought the roti idea into Malaysia? …………………………………………………………………………..
5. Where can roti canai be found in Malaysia? ……………………………………………………………………..
 Upper Sec/Comprehension – Malaysian Roti
Xtraordinaire Achievers & Advisors

6. Name the extra ingredients needed for these roti canai:

Roti Pisang
Roti Boom
Roti Banjir
Roti Beckham

7. How is roti tisu different from the rest?

i) …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
ii) …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

8. What does a ‘quizzical shake of the head’ indicate about the person? (paragraph 1)

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

C Explain in your own words the meaning of each of the following, as it is used in the text.

i) unmistakably ……………………………………………………………………………………………………….
ii) translucent …………………………………………………………………………………….…………………
iii) moniker …………………………………………………………………………….…………………………
iv) hybridized …………………………………………………………………………….…………………………
v) akin …………………………………………………………………………….…………………………
vi) riotous …………………………………………………………………………….…………………………