Slap, Twist, Lift: Handmade Popiah Skins in Penang

Popiah is a popular Malaysian spring roll wrapped in a paper-thin wheat skin. Although Malaysians have not lost their appetite for the dish, handmade popiah skins are becoming increasingly difficult to find as fewer artisans continue this demanding craft. At Penang’s Chowrasta Market, Gary Lim makes each skin by slapping a lump of elastic dough against a hot cast-iron pan. Each skin takes only five seconds to cook – which sounds simple until you see how much skill is squeezed into those five seconds. Behind this hypnotic performance lies a family tradition passed down through four generations.

The lump of dough in Gary Lim’s hand looked unruly: white, elastic and determined to cling to everything it touched. With a quick movement, he swung it down onto a hot, flat-bottomed cast-iron pan, twisted his wrist and pulled it away. A perfect film of dough remained behind. Barely five seconds later, his assistant scraped off a translucent popiah skin and added it to a growing stack. Then Gary did it again. Slap, twist, lift. Slap, twist, lift. It was part cooking demonstration, part percussion performance – and entirely mesmerising.

There was almost no margin for error. Leave the wrapper on the pan too long, and it would burn; remove it too early, and it would not hold together. Occasionally, Gary peeled one off himself when his assistant fell behind. The dough may have been soft, but the pace showed no mercy.

I found Gary working at a small shop in the bustle of Chowrasta Market in George Town. The business was founded by his father, Lim Kim Hoe, better known locally as Uncle Lim, who had made popiah skins there for half a century. Uncle Lim was a fourth-generation maker. By the time of my visit, poor health prevented him from working as before, but his children were continuing the family trade. Gary had inherited both the technique and, judging by the queue, the responsibility of keeping Penang supplied.

Popiah skin resembles an exceptionally thin wheat crêpe, although calling it a crêpe does not quite prepare you for its delicacy. It is almost transparent, yet elastic enough to hold a generous mixture of vegetables, sauce and other fillings without immediately surrendering. Anyone who has ever overfilled a wrap will appreciate that this is not a minor achievement.

Popiah originated in China’s Fujian Province and travelled to Malaysia with Hokkien and Teochew communities during the colonial era.

Here it became a much-loved local food, adapted through regional ingredients and tastes. Popiah sellers were once common, and the popiah skins were routinely made by hand. Today, the dish remains popular, but the people willing to spend hours beside a hot pan producing the skins one by one have become much harder to find. Affection for traditional food is widespread; enthusiasm for the heat, repetition and aching wrists required to make it is rather less so.

The Lim family’s skins are known for being particularly thin, supple and resilient. Customers come from beyond Penang, including Singapore and Hong Kong, sometimes carrying away one or two kilograms. A single skin weighs almost nothing, so a kilogram represents a formidable pile – and a formidable number of encounters between Gary’s dough and the pan.

“Not many people make handmade popiah skin nowadays. It takes too long. Popiah skin makers are becoming rare,” Gary told me. He sounded pessimistic about the craft’s future, but he did not stop working as he spoke. The pan was hot, the orders were waiting, and there was no time for a long discussion about disappearing traditions.

Before turning back to his dough, Gary invited me to return on Sunday, when the family sold popiah made with their own filling.

When I returned, Chowrasta Market was crowded, and the little shop had attracted a queue. People waited while the fresh skins were spread with sweet sauce and chilli paste, then filled and rolled. I had eaten popiah several times in Melaka, but I had never watched one being assembled and possessed only a vague idea of what was hidden inside. The answer was practically a small market stall in itself: grated turnip, lettuce, bean sprouts, shredded omelette, tofu, fried shallots, grated carrot and chopped peanuts.

The challenge was to fit all of this into one delicate wrapper without creating a vegetable landslide. The workers folded and rolled with the calm confidence of people who had done it thousands of times. In their hands, the paper-thin skin proved surprisingly strong. In mine, the filling would probably have escaped before the first fold was complete.

I also discovered another Penang use for popiah skin: barley peanut candy, a traditional sweet snack. A crisp piece of candy is enclosed in the wrapper, giving the same humble skin an entirely different assignment. One moment it is holding turnip and bean sprouts; the next it is carrying peanuts and sugar. Versatility, in the food world, often means being ready for whatever the customer is hungry for.

Watching Gary work made it easy to understand why handmade popiah skins are disappearing. The ingredients are simple, but the skill is not. Each wrapper demands speed, judgement and a movement perfected through endless repetition. Machines can produce uniform skins more quickly and cheaply; they do not need years of practice, and they rarely complain about standing over a hot pan.

Yet the Lim family’s shop offered more than a convenient ingredient. It connected Penang’s appetite to the hands, gestures and family knowledge behind it. Customers did not merely leave with a stack of wrappers or a freshly rolled lunch. They left with something made in front of them, at a pace measured in five-second bursts and four generations.

At Chowrasta Market, the stack continued to rise: slap, twist, lift; scrape, stack, repeat. The whole process looked effortless – which is generally the clearest sign that somebody has spent years learning how to do it. A popiah skin may disappear in a few bites, but making one properly is a much longer story.