Food in Indonesia

Rice is one of the basic food staples in not just Indonesia, but in the Southeast Asian region. There are mythic stories about rice itself in countries in Southeast Asia. One popular story in the Philippines is about the Bagobo people of Mindanao who talk of the hero Lumabat. Lumabat wished to explore the sky with his sister Mebuyan. She refused, sitting firmly in a rice mortar, which sank into the earth with her as she scattered handfuls of rice. She has stayed underground since then. In a Javanese story, Tisnawati, daughter of the supreme god Batara Guru, falls in love with a mortal, Jakasudana, of whom her father disapproves. The father punishes her disobedience by turning her into a rice stalk, but then, in pity, he transforms Jakasudana as well. Their marriage is re-enacted by the Javanese harvest ritual in Malaysia. Through these historical myths, we can see that rice is a common thread that links within Southeast Asian countries. It presents “a means of tracing the spread of cultures and people”¹, which is representative of the increasingly blurred boundaries in Southeast Asia.

There is a different variety of food in the archipelago. However, one thing to note is that something as common as food is actually culturally defined. This is because what the locals may deem as delicious may not be tasty to a foreigner. For example, the basic spice paste found in many Indonesian dishes may not be suitable for a foreigner who is not accustomed to the local food and spices. For westerners who are used to eating large portions of meat and fish, pasta and potatoes, Indonesian food may seem unsuitable for their palate. Another example would be the durian, which is indigenous to Southeast Asia. Many foreigners find that the smell of the durian is unappetizing. However, to many locals, the durian is one of the most delicious fruits around. This shows that even something as mundane as food can bring many different meanings to the different people who view it. Our perspectives could be a result of our culture, and if many Southeast Asians are similar in the way they view the durian, it could mean that even though we are all of differing backgrounds and cultures, we share a common thread somewhere. Perhaps Southeast Asia used to have only one culture before groups of people started forming subcultures that evolved into the Southeast Asia as we know today.

As foreigners, we also have to be culturally sensitive. As Indonesia has a large Muslim community, the food served there is Halal. This means that the food served have to be prepared in a way that is permissible by Islamic law. This is also an example of how food and religion are linked.

As the world becomes increasingly compact and boundaries become less clearly defined, different cultures have influences each other. This can be seen in the case of Chinese influences in Indonesian food. The evolvement of Peranakan or Nonya food, which is essentially a combination of Chinese and Malay culture, is a good example of these influences. Otak-otak, a mixture of fish, chilli and coconut milk remains as a very well liked delicacy in many parts of South-East Asia. Kebabs, marinated meat cubes threaded on skewers, were reinterpreted to become satay. We can see that there are many reinventions and reinterpretations of food from other cultures to suit the tastes of locals. Maybe it is time to think twice before biting into that stick of satay – perhaps its origins were not as “Singaporean” as we may have originally thought!