Long Forgotten Tonic

For those of us who grew up in the eighties, we certainly have heard or eaten pig’s brains before. It was die-die-must-eat tonic for the brains especially during the exams period, stamping from the Chinese tradition of eating the animals’ parts to improve the body parts we want to improve (以形补形).

With growing health consciousness, pig’s brains were deemed to be a food high in cholesterol. Moreover, there was increasing awareness of using health supplements such as ginko seeds and omega-3 to improve our brain powers. Gradually, we steered away from the pig’s brains and the same time, this well-known tonic also moved out of our lifestyle. Nowadays, it was difficult to source for this tonic in the market or hawker centres.

Hence, you could imagine my surprise when I saw it being sold as a tonic soup in a nearby coffee shop. For the faint-hearted or those with an aversion to eating animals’ parts, please immediately abandon this journal.

Throwing all the cholesterol caution to the wind, I decided to try this tonic and relive the memories of the old school days. For those who never tasted pig’s brains before, it was softer than toufu but harder than beancurd. The preparation work was also difficult because the cleaning process was very time consuming especially the removal of the veins in the brains.

Time seemed to rewind when we stared at the pig’s brains soup. Nevertheless, having so much exposure to the undesirable health impact of high cholesterol, I believed I would still continue to avoid this in future.