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Making a place at the table for INDONESIAN CUISINE
The Kakawin Ramayana, or Ramayana Sonnet, describes a ninth century feast fit for a king
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The Kakawin Ramayana, or Ramayana Sonnet, describes a ninth century feast fit for a king. Alas, some of the special dishes mentioned in the sonnet are no longer made.
Speaking at a recent discussion on how to introduce Indonesian food to the world held by soy sauce producer Bango, historian JJ Rizal said that the sonnet told of how the king's household prepared a feast of folk food ' called food for monkeys in the sonnet, such as pindang, gulay-gulay, hasem-haseman, lawar-lawaran and bakasem.
While those dishes sound similar to those familiar with current menus; the rajamangsa, or king's dishes, included tuak siddhu, badawang, baning, wdus gunting, karung putih, karung mati, ring gantungan, asu tugel and taluwah ' all of which have been lost for centuries.
Another story from Aceh in the 16th century described a feast given by the local royal family for a French expedition that served 50 dishes.
Previously, recipes were conspicuously handed down from mothers to daughters. The Javanese noblewoman Kartini ' the nation's feminist ' was the first to keep them and copy them down.
Kartini, who was named a National Hero for educating girls and fostering women's rights, collected recipes that were used after her death by Kartini's sister Kardinah as teaching material at her school.
A more recent descendant of Kartini, the late Suryatini N. Ganie, used the recipes as her reference for her own cookbooks.
'What's interesting is that the recipes Kartini collected are for Javanese folk dishes and fusion food adapted from Indian, Chinese and Arabian cuisine. There is no recipe that is described as a 'meal for the elite',' Rizal said.
Long before Kartini, Koba JMJ Catenius-van der Meijden ' the 14th century Dutch version of Martha Stewart ' wrote The New Complete Indies Cookbook. The book contained 1,381 listings for Indonesian dishes, spices and other ingredients.
Rizal said that Catenius interviewed babu, or the Indonesian maids, in the Dutch households in Batavia (Jakarta) and Semarang, Central Java, who had learned to cook dishes from the various locations of the archipelago where their masters had been assigned.
'The recipes she collected have never gone through the test kitchen,' he added.
According to Rizal, Catenius, whose works received a posthumous award at The Hague Cooking Exhibition in 1904, wrote books that helped introduce Indonesian rice culture to the Dutch through a dish called rijsttafel, or the rice table ' rice with an array of side dishes.
'The Dutch colonists loved rice but were ashamed of their new habit, so they invented rijsttafel to be served only during feasts,' said Rizal. 'Rijsttafel itself represented the diversity of the nation. It is figuratively Indonesia on the dining table.'
After Independence, the government documented Indonesian cuisine in a book titled Mustikarasa (Gem of Flavors) in 1959 as part of its food security policy.
Work on the book, led by the National Planning Agency, lasted seven years as officials reached out to local administration heads and interviewed their wives. The book contains over 1,700 recipes.
'The masterpiece is Suryatini's work, which collected 5,000 recipes for Indonesian dishes and beverages over 20 years in a quest to find out what Indonesian cuisine actually was,' Rizal said.
Cook and restaurateur William Wongso, who also spoke at the seminar, said that Indonesian cuisine had the potential to go global.
Indonesians have often joined world food festivals, such as the World Street Food Congress in Singapore, and Indonesian chefs have been invited to teach at The Culinary Institute of America ' the good CIA, according to William.
'The world has acknowledged Indonesian food as a culinary tradition with distinctive flavors. Our food is also seen as an important element of Indonesian culture,' he said at the discussion.
However, William said that only recently has the government tried to promote Indonesian cuisine by selecting 30 iconic dishes for promotional purpose.
Indonesia lacked South Korean's well-managed program to popularize and to develop its traditional food, William said. 'Korea has the Creative Culinary Institute of Korea at Jeonju University whose lecturers have Ph.D.s in Korean food culture. They have well-thought strategy in going global.'
William said that Indonesian food had to become master in its own house. 'We need to do two things simultaneously: branding Indonesian food and the other one is instilling pride in home products.'
Another speaker, food blogger Bayu Amus, said that social media could promote Indonesian food outside the nation.
'Language is the main challenge ' and is the reason I write my blog in English,' said the creator of Epicurina, where writes of his Bali food adventures.
'There are four phases of reader experience: discovery, on-boarding, exploring and mastery,' Bayu said. 'Posting a picture of a dish and what it's called is not enough of information if we want to popularize Indonesian food.'
