WHAT do you do when life throws you a hardball? Perhaps take a fall and stay fallen. Or pick yourself up and move on with grit and guts like Edward Rozario – a former club deejay turned Grab-car driver and now a fish pickle entrepreneur.
Life was not altogether big time for Rozario, also known as “Capt Ed” in club circles, but it was quite a breeze.
“I had regular work and a high-paying job as a club deejay which took me places around the country as well as stints in the club scene in restive Southern Thailand. Nothing to complain,” Rozario tells The Vibes.
“There was more than enough to manage my family with some creature comforts thrown in and some extras as savings for a rainy day. The extra ‘soft’ bonus was simply the fact that I enjoyed my work very much being a music lover. So, I was actually engaged in my own ‘hobby’ and got paid handsomely for it,” he says.
Rozario had spun music for 27 years, entertaining his audience with a variety of genres ranging from R&B, techno, rock, house to EDM, electro, and trance.
He was most happy weaving his music in the upbeat urban circuits – beginning with the Seremban 2020 Discotheque in the 1990s, moving on to Rock World Penang, Rock World KL, Zax Club PJ, Warp KL, Club Neverland at Jalan Kia Peng, Duck Disco and Kiss me Discotheque in Betong.
His last stint at the deejay’s console was at the Club OS3 in Kuchai Lama. Realising that age was catching up on him, Rozario decided to quit the boom-boom room’s heady world of strobe lights and the demanding bustle of nightlife for the more regular profession of a Grab-car driver.
“At that time (pre-pandemic days), Grab or e-hailing business was a money-spinner. It gave optional opportunities for part-time drivers who wanted to supplement their income from their full-time jobs and for new job seekers like me who were looking out for full-time work as e-hailing drivers.
“I must say I am either a lucky person or am truly blessed that opportunities seemed to knock at my door,” said the father of one. “I loved this job too as much as I loved being a deejay, and the freedom of working at my own pace.
“Being a ‘premium’ Grab-car driver I was earning an average of RM500 per day and life was good. I remember, one day I earned RM1,034.80,” Rozario says with a laugh.
He says he started work at the crack of dawn to be the early worm and to be ahead of the competition. “I pick up more fares daily by hitting the road early and working till the late hours to meet my daily target.”
‘Pandemic-hit’
Then the Covid-19 pandemic hit last year disrupting every industry and directly or indirectly ruffling everybody’s life and their daily routine. Some fell along the way, heavily burdened and are still struggling to find their way out through the shadow of darkness and uncertainty. For Rozario too, the pandemic came as a blunt blow on his solar plexus.
“I was already two years on the e-hailing job when the pandemic was declared. Yet, I continued to work with a struggle, but as time went on I was earning less and less as the tour and the travel industry was among the many industries badly hit by the worldwide disruptions in air travel.
“I felt the pinch personally, as I was a regular at airports to pick up fares. As international air travel and the tourism industry came to a complete standstill, I decided it was time to pause and reset. Perhaps, I thought it is time I started my own business and what came to my mind was to sell homemade ikan tenggiri (mackerel) pickles!”
According to him, he and his son, Meshach Rozario, who was actually en route to taking up culinary studies – which was put on hold due to the pandemic – wasted no time. They hit the ground running before the Christmas season last year to roll out their novel product, Mable’s Pickles – positioning it as an ideal Christmas and New Year gift on their first-ever marketing romp in FB.
Both father and son were overwhelmed by the online response and orders. Rozario says “it was just a wild gamble” that struck an unexpected high note.
“The telephone never stopped ringing and we had a tough time handling online orders the most. We were deluged by orders even from East Malaysia unexpectedly. From what I know, Borneo people do not take to Indian ‘rempah and masala’ so fondly. And our pickles are full of it. This surprised us. We received orders from Singaporeans as well.
“Throughout the Yuletide and New Year season we were on our toes because Mable’s Pickles, named after my mother, gained instant traction and this was not something we expected will happen so soon,” Rozario says.
Amazingly, in a short time, the father-son team managed to put together their Christmas promotion, complete with Christmas paraphernalia, packaging and merchandise to promote their newly-minted fish pickle online trade.
Mother’s heritage recipe
But why did Rozario choose to embark on the fish pickle business? It goes back to his early childhood and his growing-up years in Kuala Lipis. “Me and my siblings used to help Mother prepare tenggiri fish pickles which the Malayalee community is well known for. It was also time-consuming, so we helped Mother with simple chores like peeling and cutting and preparing the spices.
“Preparing this pickle for a homemade start-up is a back-breaking job. It involves selecting the right raw materials, especially the fish, to carefully selecting the arsenal of Indian spices, from cutting up the fish into fillet bits to marinating and assembling the spices and then waiting for the marinade to rightly mature and ready to be fried, stored, and to be bottled.
“My mother was an expert in preparing this fish pickle which her former Indian hometown of Trivandrum in Kerala is renowned for. She shared bottles of these specially made fish pickles with neighbours and friends in the railway community – my late father, Justus Rozario, being a locomotive driver plying the Kuala Lipis-Gemas route.
“Father also used to bring these pickles in his tiffin while on duty. His colleagues, too, got a taste of Mother’s special fish pickles and word got around about the ‘Lipis-Gemas Tenggiri Pickles’ which had tickled tastebuds as far as Gemas in the sixties and the seventies,” he added.
Mable’s Pickles can be eaten with most staples such as steamed rice, white bread, roti canai, thosai, idli, chapatti, naan as well as any other Indian breads and even cream crackers.
Rozario explains Mable’s Pickles is not the usual “salted fish pickles” which are commonly available, but “actual fresh mackerel fish” that is specially marinated, fried, pickled and stored in huge ceramic vats and then packed and sold in bottled jars without involving any machining or mechanical processes.
“Every one of these processes is hand-done. There is no easy way out and no machinations nor commercial shortcuts. And we want to keep it this way too, to keep the taste of an age-old charm of the Kerala people,” says Rozario.
Rozario says his mother’s pickles are extraordinary in taste and are more than just a finger-licking dab to enliven a drab meal. In Indian meals, pickles are served as an accompaniment to perk up the appetite. For this reason, pickles are always placed at the far edge of the banana leaf or the furthest margin of the plate as they are not considered a side dish to be chewed but swiftly licked – perhaps when no one is watching!
A “wee bit of a pickle” is all that is needed to last an entire meal but see what this satisfied customer says after trying out Mabel’s Pickles in an FB post: “Hello there, a special friend named Lisa sent me your pickles and I must say it's delicious. How much is a bottle, please? Sorry, my name is Rozie.”
Mable’s Pickles: “Hi Rozie, thank you. It costs RM24.90 per jar.
Rozie: “Great. I normally hate pickles but I ate half a bottle of your pickles with just hot rice, yummy. Okay, can I order eight bottles and can you deliver to my house in Klang, please? Or maybe, let me have 10 bottles lah.”
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‘Heritage and emotion’
Here is another testimony from another happy online customer, Glen G.K: “I have tried many fish pickles with some claiming it’s the best and authentic. Today, I had the pleasure of being presented with two bottles of ‘Mable’s Homemade Kerala Fish Pickles’.
'All I can say, it brought back memories of my mum making this in her kitchen in the 70s. Truly authentic, awesome, chunky, and just right. My search has ended.”
Glen’s testimony justifies why Mable’s Pickles goes by the homey tagline: “It’s not a bottle of pickles. It’s ‘home’ packed in a jar,” and an extra emphatic one-liner that reads: “Authentic Kerala Homemade Flavour”.
For Malayalees and most other Indian ethnicities in the sub-continent, or for those among the diaspora, pickles are more than just that “tangy-pungent-sourish-sweet” food-biologic that gives one’s tastebuds a jolt to begin a meal, and a continuing joggle to keep the appetite rising to a crescendo.
Mable’s Pickles are simply a “heritage and an emotion” to be experienced and to be lived over and over again come every meal. It is no wonder then, why this homemade wonder is a big hit with Malaysia’s multi-ethnic communities.
Pickle lover Lynn Fateha in a FB post depicts a photo of a half plate of nasi-lemak rice without the regular Malay-ish sambal but with half a hard-boiled egg and a big dollop of Mable’s Pickles. She captioned the photo in digital language thus: “Done. Truly tasty. U all must try.”
Says Sally Teow Bee Suan: “Bought Mable’s Pickles a few times. Highly recommended, very nice, and tasty. My friends love it too, very nice and yummy,” she adds.
Another Mable’s Pickles fan, Tan Wee Eng simply puts it “well-packed, quick delivery and the pickles were super yum yum.”
For Sivamalar Murugasoo, the pickles go very well with plain rice and rasam. “It is a haunting combination, very tasty and not so sweet and not so oily, unlike other fish pickles.”
Shahrul Halim suggests that Mabel’s Pickles would be ideal for the Ramadan season to break fast and for the sahur meal at dawn while Ahmad Afif asked if it is heart-friendly?
Mable’s Pickles responds: “We use gingerly oil to prepare the pickle. All the other ingredients used are health-friendly. We also have a special edition that is diabetic-friendly. In this preparation, we use Monk food sweetener instead of white sugar.”
It is amazing that every detail has been taken care of, in terms of taste, quality as well as the common health concerns of Malaysian consumers. The father and son duo from Tastyworks, a registered company that producers Mable’s Pickles are without a doubt, a two-man “power team” who know a thing or two about tenacity and staying power.
“We do all the work by ourselves, from sourcing for the fish and other ingredients right up to preparing the spices and marinades as well as attending to hundreds of online orders and packing the bottles with bubble-wrap and getting them ready for delivery through courier service.
“Besides these, it is also our job to attend to quality control and to respond to customer feedback. We even do the marketing and promotional materials ourselves. I designed the logo for the product and the graphics for the product label.
“We only hired a commercial photographer to undertake the product shots because we wanted a professional touch in that area. The product must appear appealing as first impressions count and are key to marketing. It will determine the potential customer’s response to purchase or to give it a miss,” adds Rozario.
Determination translates to success and this maxim is relatable to both Rozario and Meshach who seem to be individuals of willpower to face each day’s surmounting challenge of getting Mable’s Pickles up and ready daily – before the courier boys arrive to pick up the cargo for dispatch to different destinations. Rozario says the two of them spend about 12 to 14 hours a day preparing the pickles which come in three different editions, original, extra-spicy, and diabetic-friendly.
“At present, we operate from home but we are also planning to move out to a commercial unit and hire some hands to help us with the manual chores at least. This way, we could concentrate on the main task of cooking as well as marketing and customer relations.”
Rozario plans to move out when the pandemic situation eases a little more.
Talking about the pandemic, as much as the Covid-19 disaster has brought untold misery and struggle to many, there are some winners like Rozario and Meshach. They stand as inspiring models to those who were felled by the weight of the pandemic’s impact.
The story of Rozario and Meshach could be the timely catalyst for the “pandemic-hit” to pause, reset, pick up their mat and walk again. It is surprising to know that some of the most motivating stories of “overcoming” actually come from people who were never known to be household names. – The Vibes, September 9, 2021
* Get Mable’s Pickles via https://www.facebook.com/mablespickles/, http://shopee.com.my/mablespickles or Whatsapp 0147149310
**In conjunction with Malaysia Day, Mable’s Pickles is going at special discounted prices until September 30. For every two jars of the Original and Extra Spicy editions, customers need to pay only RM38, for three jars RM54 and five jars only RM90. For the diabetes-friendly edition, two jars at RM42, three jars at RM60, and five jars at RM100.
