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UGM professor receives UFF’s award
Tasteful: Murdijati Gardjito (in black) and some of her former students at Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta celebrate after compiling over 3,000 traditional recipes that they published in the 12-book Pusaka Cita Rasa Indonesia (Indonesian Taste Heritage) series
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asteful: Murdijati Gardjito (in black) and some of her former students at Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta celebrate after compiling over 3,000 traditional recipes that they published in the 12-book Pusaka Cita Rasa Indonesia (Indonesian Taste Heritage) series.(Courtesy of Murdijati Gardjito)
Losing her eyesight in 2015 did not stop culinary expert Murdijati Gardjito, 77, from living her true passion: researching and writing books on Indonesian food.
This year alone she plans to publish seven books: four are on cuisine, two on gastronomy, the other one is on traditional Javanese food and rituals. The last one is to be published in Indonesian and in English.
Murdijati admitted to having no cooking skill, but her solid expertise in food technology led her to write more than 60 books about Indonesian culinary culture and empowerment of local produce.
It is therefore not surprising that the Ubud Food Festival (UFF) gave her the Lifetime Achievement Award during the festival’s gala opening on Thursday night in Bali’s upland town of Ubud.
“This is an honor,” said Murdijati while conveying her hope that the award would attract the attention of international Indonesian culinary aficionados to her independent, self-financed research.
She is slated also to share her lifelong mission to promote Indonesian cuisine at the festival’s discussion session, titled Empowering Indonesian Produce, on Sunday.
Her interest in Indonesian cuisine started when she was studying food technology at Gadjah Mada University (UGM) in Yogyakarta.
She realized that all the books she had to learn from at university were written by foreign authors. The passion grew stronger as she also found it difficult to find books on Indonesian cuisine.
“I felt guilty. I should have known about Indonesian food first before studying food technology,” she told herself back then.
She started to understand Indonesian cuisine upon reading Mustika Rasa, an Indonesian recipe book published in 1967.
According to Murdijati, first president Sukarno commissioned the book based on a consideration that if all Indonesians consumed what the local farmers cultivated, there would be no need for the country to import food.
“It was a very simple thought but resonated deeply in my heart,” said Murdijati, who is also a researcher at UGM’s Center for Food and Nutrition Studies (PSPG).
As a professor, Murdjiati spent most of her time teaching at UGM’s School of Agricultural Technology.
She began to lose her eyesight due to some health problems, forcing her to completely stop lecturing in 2015. Her activities were limited to supervising doctoral degree students and speaking in seminars.
“After losing my eyesight, I feel that my memory became stronger,” she said, adding that she could remember anything that her assistant read.
She came up with the idea to build an Indonesian culinary database program that could support research and promotion purposes.
With the help of many former students, she collected around 170 culinary reference books, popular books, bestseller books and books written by unpopular but reliable authors.
From the books, her team gathered 3,257 recipes that they input into the program database. The data is categorized into main courses, side dishes, drinks and snacks, as well as into 34 culinary regions (which are different from the 34 Indonesian provinces).
Her team ended up with nearly 5,000 pages of recipes, which they later published into a 12-book series titled Pusaka Cita Rasa Indonesia (Indonesian Taste Heritage).
“With these books, everyone can say: ‘These are Indonesian dishes,’” said Murdijati.
To popularize Indonesian food abroad, she is now encouraging the government and other stakeholders to promote five signature dishes: rendang (meat cooked in spiced, thick coconut milk), soto (soup), satay, fried rice and gado-gado (salad with spicy peanut sauce).
“The government has to facilitate the opening of many Indonesian restaurants abroad and oblige them to include the five dishes in their menus,” she suggested.
She also shares her concerns about the young generation that doesn’t know much about traditional food and prefers to eat Western food.
Educating people about food, as she suggested, is part of building the character of a nation. Murdjiati believes as people taste and learn more about traditional food, their love for the nation will grow stronger.
“This nation has spiced the world since 1500, before Indonesia was even born,” she said, referring to European expeditions to the archipelago in search of spices decades ago.
After publishing more than 60 books, Murdjiati sees that there is still much that can be done to document the vast Indonesian culinary heritage. Yet, she realizes that she cannot do it all alone.
“I am 77 years old, approaching 78 years now. I am competing with time. If I keep on researching, no one knows[…]” she pondered.
