Flowing orders:  Workers keep busy preparing and serving Madiun pecel at the Yu Gembrot stall.

Pecel is a mixture of boiled vegetables with spicy peanut sauce. Although nearly all parts of Java claim the dish, the Madiun, East Java, style of the traditional recipe has its own distinctive flavor.

Pecel is served with rice and sambal pecel, a blend of ground peanuts, chili, jeruk purut (kaffir lime) leaves, shallots, garlic, tamarind, pepper and salt. It'€™s like European salad with mayonnaise topping.

As a complement, rempeyek kacang (peanut wafers) and kerupuk puli (rice crackers), also called kerupuk lempeng in Madiun, are added. The other typical feature is the use of pincuk (coconut leaves) containing pecel rice, in a combination known as pecel pincuk.

Madiun city, originally dubbed Kota Gadis, an acronym for Kota Perdagangan dan Industry (City of Trade and Industry), has now earned another moniker, '€œKota Pecel'€.

Pecel sellers, from vendors to kiosks or stalls, can be found in different road sections and alleys, generally offering this favorite dish on top of their regular menus. Some eateries even only sell pecel rice and are open round the clock.

One of the stalls in Madiun is warung pecel Yu Gembrot, which has become a magnet for culinary enthusiasts. Unlike the others, which are mostly crowded in the hub of the city, the stall is located in the Pasar Besi Logam Jaya blacksmith area in Kartoharjo district.

Yu Gembrot, meaning '€œobese woman'€, has become a well-known name among pecel enthusiasts. '€œActually it was only my mother'€™s nickname,'€ stall manager Hendro Prasetyo, 40, said recently. His grandmother Sarinem has been a pecel rice vendor since 1942.

Hendro'€™s mother, a 60-year-old woman whose real name is Kartini '€” and is not as stout as she'€™s called '€” is a second generation who continued the business by opening the stall in 1974. '€œI'€™ve finally joined and managed the stall, which opens from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m.,'€ he added.

According to him, all pecel in the city basically has the same ingredients and preparation method. '€œThe distinguishing factor is its sambal pecel for the sauce,'€ explained the father of two, although the sauce, too, has the same ingredients.

Hendro claims that Yu Gembrot retains Madiun'€™s typical taste based on his granny'€™s recipe, in which kaffir lime leaves are blended in a special fashion. '€œSo it'€™s the composition and way of concocting the spices that finally create the unique flavor.'€

His stall also offers extras besides the standard pecel pincuk, with salted eggs, mata sapi or sunny-side-up fried eggs, empal (boiled and fried marinated beef) and cow offal. While the standard portion costs Rp 6,000 (44 US cents), with an extra it doubles to Rp 11,000, and rises by another Rp 1,000 during holidays.

Yu Gembrot has also expanded by producing 200-gram and 400 g solid sambal pecel packs priced at Rp 12,000 and Rp 24,000, respectively.

During holidays like Idul Fitri, Christmas and New Year, Hendro'€™s stall sells almost 1 ton of solid sauce in a week. On daily average, Yu Gembrot consumes 15 kilograms of empal and offal, which increases to 30 kg in holiday seasons.

Unlike Yu Gembrot and most other pecel stalls, there is a home industry in Madiun specializing in the sale of sambal pecel packs, which is owned by the family of Roesmadji, already famous for the brand Jeruk Purut.

The industry maintains the traditional way of preparing and packing the product in the family'€™s home on Jl. Delima, Taman district, Madiun. '€œWe continue and preserve the business of our mother, who was originally a pecel rice seller here,'€ said Asriin, 47, one of Roesmadji'€™s five children.

Asriin said her mother, who died in 2012, was a primary school dropout married to a farmer who sold pecel to office employees around her house. Her stall even consumed 10 kg of sambal pecel daily. '€œIn 1971, she decided to shift to sambal pecel production,'€ said Asriin.

At the time her sambal pecel was sought by consumers from Yogyakarta and Solo as information was passed on by word of mouth. Jeruk Purut was chosen because the lime leaves boost its flavor and the name is easy to remember. In 1985, the family focused on the business until a patent was secured in 2000 and a halal label granted by the Indonesian Council of Ulema (MUI).

Orders for Jeruk Purut later came from various other cities like Jakarta, Surabaya, Banjarmasin and Palembang, with some buyers even regularly taking sambal pecel to the Netherlands, not to mention Indonesian students and personnel abroad who consume it to relieve their homesickness.

Asriin claims to sell at least 100 kg of the solid sauce daily. '€œDuring vacations, whatever quantity is produced will always sell out,'€ she said, assuring that the ingredients used to make sambal pecel last four months before expiring should always be in fresh condition.

Most of her customers buy her products for personal use or as a gift. But she also referred to many others who buy in large quantities for resale purposes or for their pecel rice eateries, using the sauce of Jeruk Purut.

Roesmadji'€™s sambal pecel comes in normal, fairly hot and very hot varieties. It is contained in single-sized 250 g packs each costing Rp 10,000. For large-scale purchases, it is priced at Rp 40,000 per kg.

Wishing to expand her business through routine exports, Asriin and her family will keep promoting the legacy of their mother, who in spite of not continuing her education past primary school, displayed great spirit and a work ethic that finally turned the modest traditional product into a remarkable source of family income.

'€” Photo by Nedi Putra AW

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