I had a rare chance last week dining my favourite dish of all time, the flying fox porridge … yummy yummy. Unique among the Dayaks in Sarawak, this exotic delicacy is now becoming popular among the Chinese too.

The preparation of the dish is very simple indeed:

• Flying fox meat
• Rice
• Ginger
• Lemon Grass
• Salt

To give it a more authentic flavour, you must not cook the porridge with tap water but using rain water instead. As the flying fox meat can be quite tough (depending on the maturity of the mammal) you could cook it in a pressure cooker for 10 to 15 minutes. However, if you can wait long enough and is a person who appreciates the authentic taste and aroma of the meat, I suggest, you cook the porridge under slow fire for about 60 minutes.

Besides making it a porridge, the common way of preparing the meat are:

• Stew with fermented durian (tempoyak)
• Stir-fry with lemon grass and soy sauce

I must say, flying fox or its scientific name Pteropus scapulatus, is now a protected species. I used to remember in the early 90′s people used to sell them at the Sunday Market in Satok. Nowadays, you count it a blessing when you spot swarm of these fruit bats navigate the air looking for fruit trees to feast. This year, the number of these bats raiding the villagers’ fruit orchards were erratically large that it have became pest threat. I followed my uncle to his fruit orchard where he demonstrated a creative method to defend his fruit trees. He tied hundreds of fishing hooks on a fishing line which is approximately 50 metres long. He stretched this line around the perimeter of tree. One tree is secured with 2 or 3 lines around the perimeter. When these flying foxes attempted to raid the fruits, they were caught in the hook.

Here’s some pictures of the captivated ones. These mammals feed on fruits.

That’s me holding a mother that was caught with its baby.

Close-up of the baby. A flying fox that’s been captivated since a baby will become tame as it grows.