Indonesia, a word which consists of 9 letters: a simple and easy to remember. But if you’ve set foot in the largest archipelagic country in the world and has 17,508 islands, everything is not as simple as its name. Country with 33 provinces have hundreds of tribes with cultural background, traditions and customs of different makes Indonesia one of the countries with the highest in the world of cultural diversity both in terms of artistry, lifestyle and culinary.
Titi Napier Noodle
Background of Indonesian history as the place to trade between two continents, Asia and Australia, giving effect to the seasoning, food ingredients and cooking techniques thousand island country. Starting from the Malay nation that became the forerunner of Indonesia, India, Middle Eastern, Chinese and European. Even the Spanish and Portuguese, had already brought many new products from the world to Indonesia than the Dutch who came later. All that blended, mixed by this nation into hundreds or even thousands of diverse types of cuisine that makes culinary Indonesia has its own uniqueness that can not be found in any country. Not wrong if I say, is the culinary Indonesia Truly unique Asian food.
Corn Bothok
Thai people so proud when they are very well known culinary world. Who does not know Tom Yam Kung, Thai-style spicy prawn soup? Or pandanus chicken? You may be one of his fans even when you’re eating it, you yourself probably do not know if the food is coming from one of these ASEAN countries. Thai food in healthy as many claim to use fresh ingredients, many contain vegetables, fish and seafood than red meat, many involving fresh fruits in their cooking, use little oil and is rich in spices such as kaffir lime leaves, lemongrass and ginger. Thai cuisine is so easy to penetrate into the mindset of Western culinary community began to shift to healthy foods, low fat, low calories, minus the oil, and use natural materials as much as possible. If you are fun to type on Google with key words ‘Thai food’, so you will have 108 million articles associated with the key words. Amazing!
Ever heard of kimchi? Korean-style pickled mustard greens. Sushi? Rice rolls wrapped in nori and contains a variety of side dishes from Japan. Nasi lemak (Fat Rice), rice trade, sprinkling chicken, or mistress of a food? Now all that is from Malaysia. If we idly once again type in key words ‘Indonesian food’ in the largest search site Google, then the machine will find 18 million related article. Okay, 18 million versus 108 million? Search engines are not one size but not the difference is quite fantastic numbers? Ironic and sad.
Now let us discuss about the culinary Indonesia with more detail. When compared with other Asian countries, Indonesia is not only true culinary hardly different but also more complete, more varied and more delicious with a variety of customized taste on the tongue of each tribe. Even its variety sometimes one dish with the same name can have a look and feel that much different. For example, the cuisine with a jerky, both made of meat, usually beef. Now you compare the Java-style beef jerky, which wrestled sweet palm sugar, coriander and garlic with a jerky style of Padang, the spicy chilli and wrestled rosy.
East Java Rawon
Lime leaves, lemongrass, ginger. Familiar with the material I mentioned this? Often used in the kitchen for your cooking flavour? So why the spice is more often associated with Thai cuisine? Is not the spices are so often used by mothers in Indonesia in concocting dishes everyday? Indonesian cuisine using almost all available resources ranging from herbs, leaves, various fruits and other plant parts to be made becomes a delicious cuisine and also healthy. Padang cuisine is delicious and full of flavour would not be complete if it did not use spices like coriander, cumin, flower mace, cinnamon, cardamom, ginger, galangal, bay leaves, lime leaves, lemongrass and probably many other spices. I am sure the owner of the restaurant in Padang have their secret seasoning each.
Rujak Petis (mixed fruit with various flavours)
You might say “But my full-fat Padang cuisine, rich in oil.” Okay, how did I mention the number of tribes in Indonesia this beloved? Hundreds? You can check in Wikipedia Indonesia, List of Ethnic Groups In Indonesia and sorry I could not count them. Padang, Minangkabau tribe, only one tribe in Sumatra. Other tribes in Indonesia? Ever visited the house, residents have Sundanese tribes? You’ll be served with various vegetables fresh vegetables such as lettuce, cucumber and eggplant round. That’s normal. I once visited a friend’s house have tribes Sundanese and vegetables served his food on the table include: guava leaf monkeys, young banana, mango leaf bud, young turmeric, leaf cup, and anything in the garden they can use as vegetables. There are other fresh-fresh? How about the Indonesian version of salad? Gado-gado, Karedok, lotek, pecel, salad paste, cingur salad, pickled vegetables / fruits, pickles, trancam.
Cuisine of Indonesia, it’s the Truly unique Asian food!