About This Book

It is customary to offer refreshments when someone visits your home or to bring food when you are the visitor. It could be a full-scale meal, but if someone is just popping over then it is usually katak batak. This is slang for small bites, snacks, pre-food, a little something or other. Katak means ‘a small piece’ and batak means ‘bite’. It sometimes gets shortened to kut-but with the verb ‘do’. So, ‘Chalo katak batak kare’ literally means ‘let’s do small bites’.

So why isn’t this book called Katak Batak? Well, that would indeed have been a good name. Except in my family, it’s called Biting Biting. Sometimes shortened to Biting with the ‘i’ drawn out a little. Biiiting.