Page 11 - EBOOK_81 Homestyle Recipes With The True Taste Of Indonesia

My Great Love of Indonesian Cuisine

Ever since childhood, I have equated food with love. Nearly every memory I have of
gatherings with family and friends involves being around food. What could possibly

be more important in life than great food and great company? My love affair with
Indonesian cuisine began long before I even realized that’s what it was. Having been
blessed with wonderful parents who were world travelers, I had the opportunity to
live in and visit many countries. Indonesia was host to a good number of my childhood
years, profoundly contributing to what would become my lifetime passion for cooking

and feeding people.
Indonesia and I have a very special relationship; it is after all, the place where

many of my childhood memories take place. During those formative years, my parents
educated my sisters and me on the great importance of the art of travel and food.
Naturally, this education included the appreciation of Indonesian cuisine. As a child
though, I didn’t always realize how lucky I was to have certain experiences or to be in
a certain place. It wasn’t until years later that I finally grew up enough to fully

comprehend the priceless gift my parents had bestowed upon my sisters and me.

Every momentous occasion in Indonesia, whether it is a birthday, house warming,
or office opening is celebrated with a Tumpeng. Tumpeng is a spectacular all-in-one
feast of turmeric seasoned rice shaped into a gargantuan mountain top, with an
assortment of side dishes that can range from the simple and inexpensive (fried
chicken and soybean cakes) to the complex and extravagant (grilled seafood, potato
cakes and a dozen other yummies). Tumpengan, or the day of Tumpeng, is the one day

when all boundaries of race, age, class and any other distinctions are put aside to feast
together, give thanks and pray together, celebrate together. An Indonesian superstition
dictates that whoever manages to eat the very tip of the rice will enjoy good luck for
years to come. I never did have a chance to eat the proverbial mountaintop at any
Tumpengan but I can safely say that good luck allowed me to partake in many of those
glorious feasts.

I have been very fortunate to have had the opportunity to travel the 17,000 islands of

Indonesia, though I’ve yet to set foot on each and every one of them. From east to west,
north to south, the world’s fourth most populous nation has an astoundingly vast array
of indigenous cuisines to boast of, each as uniquely individual as its people and
dialects. Masakan Jawa, for example, is the cuisine of eastern Java, predominantly the