Celebrating Street Food In Indonesia

Celebrating Street Food In Indonesia

Celebrating Street Food In Indonesia by Will Meyrick

FOOD CULTURE | INDONESIA

Published in NOW! Bali – October 2018

When we think of  “street food”, the image that most often comes to mind is the street foods of Thailand and Vietnam, where the food served on and from the street is from established, menu based, street located stations that will prepare a dish to the customers order from a range of specialities. Food trucks, streetside stalls set up with multiple styles of grills, stir frying, steaming and boiling components. 

Here in Indonesia ‘street food’ operates on a whole other level, street food is both static and mobile, the best alignment to Thai Street Food would actually be Warung food and the street food, the kaki limas, the push carts are more like mobile snack vendors. 

Will Meyrick in Denpasar 2019

Will Meyrick In Denpasar, Bali

A “KAKI LIMA”

WITH RINRIN MARINKA

WOMAN SELLING SATAY

Much of the cart food is fried foods “Gorengan” ayam goreng, tempe goreng, tahu isi, that customers buy on the go, they don’t have stools or tables around them. Bakso carts do travel though , rolling through neighbourhoods serving out their meal-in-a-bowl soups to customers that eat standing at the cart, handing back the bowl when they have finished.

It’s the Warungs that are really serving what could best be described as street food and their story is one that gives a clear, cultural understanding of the archipelago and the Southern China Sea trade routes in its telling

a typical Indonesian warung

In Bali many will have been introduced to the warungs through the Padang and Minangkabau style establishments that serve daily dishes from large bowls arranged on shelves in front of a window, often protected from the heat and dust of the street and flies by a gauze curtain.

Here whole small fish, chunks of beef, bowls of deep red sauces and bright green sambals along with bite sized parcels of stuffed tofu and stringy, deep green kang kung sit at room temperature waiting to be served around a steaming mound of rice. This is the home cooking of coastal and mountain West Sumatra.

The Minangkabau warungs were established originally to feed the generations of young men who, according to cultural tradition, leave their homes to make their way in the world and marry out , thus ensuring the continued extension of their tribe.

Warungs provide for vast numbers of ‘homesick’ and help them maintain links with their traditions through the provision of ‘home’ foods. In Medan Northern Sumatra the large community of Tamils celebrate their festivals of Durga Puja, Gandhi Jayanti, Independence Day and Republic Day with aromatic Biryani dishes, Malabar curries and soft pancake-like dosas.

A Padang Restaurant Shelf

The Afghans and Yemeni’s introduced the cumin flavoured rice of Nasi Kabuli and beautifully grilled goat meats, while the Chinese brought in rice noodles, the dumplings and the Siew Mai dishes, served with peppery, chili fired soups and the Malay diaspora brought with them the delicate karis, or curries, creamy with coconut milk lifted with lemongrass and galangal to keep their communities of traders, itinerant field, plantation and dock workers eating well.

This is what makes Indonesian food so interesting, complex and fascinating because to add to the fabric of this culinary anthropological puzzle insular, indigenous communities contribute their own dishes to the kaleidoscope.

BU SIE ITEK
ORIGIN: ACEH
(MAMA SAN VERSION)

SATE PADANG
ORIGIN: PADANG PANJANG
(HUJAN LOCALE VERSION)

MARTABAK TELOR
ORIGIN: LEBAKSIU TEGAL
(MAMA SAN VERSION)

From the isolation of mountainous Toraja and the bamboo filled meats and spices that takes hours of cooking over smoking coconut husks  to the far flung Eastern Island culture where refrigeration is scarce and food is best prepared daily by the local warung utilising the daily catch and the slim pickings of arid grown corns, greens and chilies and everywhere in between the Indonesian internally displaced rely on Warungs for a connection to their place of birth. 

UDANG WOKU
ORIGIN: MANADO
(HUJAN LOCALE VERSION)

Warungs often appear to have sprung from the private homes of the women who prepare and serve the food of their birth place, and they do this with pride. The style of food preparation in the archipelago , based, as it is, on limited resources, requires preparation time and a commitment  to create the best possible dishes.

DENDENG BALADO
ORIGIN: SUMATRA
(MAMA SAN VERSION)

AYAM TALIWANG
ORIGIN: LOMBOK
(HUJAN LOCALE VERSION)

BETUTU – ORIGIN: BALI
CUMI CUMI KALIO
ORIGIN: PADANG
(HUJAN LOCALE VERSIONS)

The balances of spices, herbs and the long cooking of less than prime cuts of meat in order to use all available ingredients, think chicken feet, short cut rib bones, dried fish or fermented pastes and soy cakes also demand a knowledge and a passion to create so it makes sense that the women, with families to take care of, would open up the front of their homes from where they could serve their loyal customers.

  Ibu-Ibu’s Secrets

And here from a tale of culinary adventure, we move into one that illustrates the character of Indonesia, and certainly its women. In my travels across almost the entire country, I have learned that the women of warungs are highly regarded in their community.

They are revered for their consistent provision of the best tasting foods from ‘home’, they build up their reputation so much so that they run sometimes two or more warungs under strict supervision with only a handful of helpers, often members of the extended family, who keep the valued recipes of the dishes under tight lock and key.

And I am not joking, I once tried to extract some information from a Bukit Tinggi matriarch who demanded I offer her my car in exchange!

There are male warung owners too, but not as many, the previously mentioned Yemini community have male dominated kitchens while many years ago a  Chinese immigrant arriving in Jakarta began a small noodle stall that now has over 20 branches run by the original owner’s family.

A WOMAN COOKING IN BUKIT TINGGI

PEPES IKAN
ORIGIN: WEST JAVA
(SARONG BALINESE VERSION)

RAWON
ORIGIN: MALANG
(HUJAN LOCALE VERSION)

OCTOPUS RENDANG
ORIGIN: PADANG
(HUJAN LOCALE VERSION)

Warungs truly are the grassroots of Indonesia’s culture, they tell the history, they show the tenacity of the island’s women and they illustrate clearly the very real nature of community in a continent that spans from the tips of Malaysia and Singapore to the highlands of Papua and encompasses over 13,000 islands.

My recommendation to anyone at all interested in discovering Indonesia is to spend time in these wonderful places, always look at the ones that are busy, pay no heed to the decor and jump in.

As was told to me many years ago, while you love Indonesia and you love your Indonesian wife until you learn about Indonesia’s food you will never understand either!

The Nyonya Cuisine from Malaysia

The Nyonya Cuisine from Malaysia

Unveiling Nyonya

FOOD CULTURE | MALAYSIA

Published in Hello Bali – January 2015

The Nyonya Cuisine from Malaysia Unveiled by Will Meyrick in the beautiful city of Penang.

I am here on a mission to meet the wonderful Nyonya cuisine expert, Pearly Kee and her sisters at Pearly’s cooking school. I am hoping they are going to weave stories into their cooking, and if I can I will get them to divulge some secrets about Nyonya cuisine.

Pearly Kee Cooking School
85, Taman Berjaya, Pulau Tikus, 10350
George Town, Pulau Pinang, Malaysia
+60164374380

Will Meyrick in Denpasar 2019

Will Meyrick And Pearly Kee

I have been to Malaysia a number of times, but on a recent visit, I was afforded some pleasing time in the beautiful city of Penang, where I discovered yet more layers of the Nyonya culture and its cuisine – a whole area of history that I find so fascinating.

Nyonya cuisine is steeped in the history of migration, intermarriage and the passing of secret recipes from one generation to the other. Nyonya women mostly welcomed the arrival of wives from China, and would share and mix up local and foreign recipes for their husbands. What a time that must have been!

  Meeting Pearly Kee

I am here on a mission to meet the wonderful Nyonya cuisine expert, Pearly Kee and her sisters at Pearly’s cooking school. I am hoping they are going to weave stories into their cooking, and if I can I will get them to divulge some secrets about Nyonya cuisine (below are some dishes from Pearly Kee, prepared especially for a past event in Mama San Bali.

chicken buah keluak curry

nasi ulam

jiew hu char

Pearly tells me that while it’s only Chinese of mixed descendant that are Peranakan, there are also the Eurasian, the generation of mixed European and Malay heritage; the Totok, born in China; and the Malay K’ling or K’ling Jawi Indian Indonesians – and all with a Nyonya cuisine. “The Penang Nyonya are from the Thai culture, and their food is spicy with a sour taste; the Melacca Nyonya food is a little sweeter. Still, we all make food according to the old recipes; the differences stem from the locations of the settlers.”

“In the old days,” she continues, “we ate for health. Turmeric for blood circulation, and shark meat for breast-feeding mothers. If you had a fever you’d be fed watery rice porridge. The rice water lowered your temperature, while the rice grains filled your stomach when you had no appetite. And food was preserved for when times were lean.” The traditional century-old eggs are a good example of ancient preservation methods, using herbs and salts to preserve the eggs, which are encased in candle wax for longevity.

But I am neither sick nor in need of a three-week-old egg doused in horse urine, so I eagerly move the topic along to the dishes we can find today. Nyonya cuisine, the girls tell me despondently, is going to die. “It will not evolve.”

A Peranakan Wedding couple, Penang 1941

But how can these dishes – amazing Laksa pungent with fish sauce, sweet with coconut, and hot fiery curries with their Chinese spices mixed in with local ingredients from the Northern Cantonese Nyonya – just disappear? Pearly laughs. “We never wrote anything down.” For years the recipes went from mouth to mouth, with the women learning them from their grandmothers. Then in the ’70s the women went out to work, and the Nyonya food was sold by male hawkers to the workers. The cuisine thus skipped a generation of women, and before we knew it the old cooks were dying along with their recipes. “So now we write it down; we figure out the measurements and we keep the recipes. And we teach them to others, so maybe it won’t die out after all.”

  Chowrasta Market

As Pearly and I venture outside I see no justification for this pessimism. Our first stop at Chowrasta Market reveals food stall upon food stall, with customers slurping from bowls of Laksa and picking at Hong Kong-style Dim Sum. The aromas rising from the bowls waft into the morning air. Like all good Asian markets you have to be here early to get the best of it.

(read below) Pulau Tikus Market

While you’re here, have breakfast with the locals, who will have put in a good few hours already hauling carts through the nearby fish market and pig market. Visit the Pulau Tikus Market, otherwise known as the rich man’s market, situated as it is in the Pulau Tikus area of Georgetown. There is an obvious Thai influence here originating from Phuket.

  Seng Lee Cafe & Lorong Seratus Tahun

Head over to Jalan Burma and the junction of Bangkok Lane and see the Seng Lee Café, where nothing’s changed in nearly 100 years. The Mee Rebus and Mee Goreng gain their unique flavour from the main ingredient – dried cuttlefish. Check out Lorong Seratus Tahun, a corner building where the owner sells soft drinks only and rents out spaces to hawker stalls like Curry Mee, who serves a sensational curry mee with prawns, pork and pork blood. It’s so good. The prawn head stock gives it a kicking flavour, but it remains light and clear – truly spicy and delicious. This corner is like a mini food court with vendors scattered around the building.

Seng Lee Cafe
270, Jalan Burma, George Town, 10350
George Town, Pulau Pinang, Malaysia

Lorong Seratus Tahun
34, Lorong Seratus Tahun, 10400
George Town, Pulau Pinang, Malaysia

  Tek Sen Restaurant

I think my favourite, despite a choice being hard to make, has to be Tek Sen Restaurant. It’s a real inspiration of Nyonya Chinese, with stir-fried clams, sweet crispy double cooked caramelised pork and a tofu stuffed with fish balls.

Actually, they stuff everything here – including their customers. Tek San started out as a rice stall in 1965, but now it represents what is so great about Penang: the revival of preservation, the determination not to get lost in homogeny, and, despite them not being written down, the cooking of Nyonya recipes.

Tek Sen Restaurant
18, Lebuh Carnarvon, George Town, 10100
George Town, Pulau Pinang, Malaysia

Jogyakarta – So much more than a pretty face…

Jogyakarta – So much more than a pretty face…

Jogyakarta
so much more than a pretty face…

TRAVEL DIARIES | JAVA

Published in Hello Bali – January 2015

Jogyakarta is close enough to Bali that you can afford to take a few days from your island schedule to explore this intriguing  part of Java, which while well known is often neglected by the Bali bound. To describe the place as rich in arts and culture is just skimming the surface, for one there is so much art, everywhere !

Will Meyrick in Denpasar 2019

Mbak Marto: A Jogyakarta Icon

But before I get carried away, let’s backtrack a bit, I love art but I am first and foremost a food guy, and I have a confession:  The food of Jogya, was for me not so easy to understand, the flavours that make up the cuisine here are complex, sophisticated and combined with the cooking style produces food that is unfamiliar taste wise for the Western palate.

The savoury tastes are quite rustic if you like, smoky flavours, dusky tones and layered textures is how I would describe it, not immediately accessible but ultimately delicious in its difference.

  Jogyakarta, city of cuisine, culture and creativity

Chicken at Yu Djum

Smoky flavours & dusky tones

Skewers are everywhere!

The food of Jogya represents a cultural cuisine heritage that unlike much of Java is created from the central elements of the land as opposed to external or impositional influences.

There is an authenticity in foods like the Gudeg, jackfruit so sweet as to be cloying yet served with a contrasting Krecek that cuts through and balances this smoky sweetness with layers of intense rustic flavour.

It’s an ancient food, there’s no frying; smoking and grilling yes, and the appearance of what we may think of as mismatched ingredients just deepen the intensity.

No frying but grilling

Smoky sweetness

The famous Nasi Jinggo

Banana blossoms, papaya leaves, quails eggs and chicken gizzards appear in various guises in dishes served from smoky warungs that look like witches covens, full of bubbling pots, glowing coconut husks, racks of smoking catfish and dishes of minced offal and meat, Buntil, parceled up in  caul.

These street cafes, like Warung Yu Djum and Warung Mangut Lele Mbah Marto famed for their rustic cuisine and the presence of the Keroncong singers like Mariachi bands who sing out the songs of the street while eager patrons eat.

Keroncong singers sing out the songs of the street

This indigenous cuisine is a mirror of Jogya, self determined. Still with a highly regarded Sultan in the palace and self governing the Jogya city vibe is relaxed and confident. There’s a strong sense of being in a community be it the centre of town or an outlying suburb you will feel a part of something close knit. It’s a safe city that celebrates its diversity openly. An excellent example of this are the student street stalls of the off the main drag of Jalan Malioboro, hip and cool Angkringan Kopi Joss is full of Nasi Jinggo, Nasi Kucing and Fried Chicken Nuggets, even fried pork is sold from carts into the early morning hours.

The busy side streets of Jogjyakarta

Mats are rolled out along the pavement for young men and women, smoking or  vaping  who lean back and enjoy their evening snack while  drinking the eponymous  Kopi Joss, thick ground coffee served with a lump of burning  charcoal that is meant to offset the acidity of the coffee.

Try it – it’s a real treat. And an insider tip here, get to Jalan Malioboro early in the morning for the market and at other times leave it for the touts and tourists and instead head to the Prawirotaman Market for the sheer joy of the banter between the stall holders. 

  Prawirotaman Market

D’Omah

If you want real insider tips and more Warwick Purser is the man to find. Now an Indonesian citizen Warwick is living in  Jogyakarta and has resided for over forty years in the Archipelago. He has spent his time supporting humanitarian causes and bringing much needed support to post disaster rebuilding from the tsunami to the earthquake of 2006 to the more recent eruption of Mt Merapi. Warwick opened D’Omah as a Boutique Heritage Village Resort as a way to introduce his guests  to the culture of “the village”, and sharing his insider knowledge on extended tours of the surrounding area.

Much of what D’Omah offers inspires my own Canggu Cooking Retreat, this sense you are welcomed into a village community that is sharing its comings and goings is for me such an important aspect of any form of travel. 

Will Meyrick

D’Omah Hotel is located not more than twenty minutes from the city  and authentically Javanese although in a delightful contrast the grounds of the hotel are home to eclectic works of art. A talented recent resident has been Amin Taasha, an emigree of Hazara descent, whose  works are inspired by his early life and eventual escape from Afghanistan.

  Water Palace

Underlining Jogya’s appeal is this continual gracious  acceptance of multiculturalism, even in the village on the way to the Water Palace we came across a multifaith Mosque that welcomes the prayers of any devotee.

The Kraton or Sultan’s Palace is a living museum, home to the current, and progressive Sultan, his wife and five daughters the palace was built in the mid- eighteenth century and is located in the midst of a lovely cool forest which makes it so pleasant to walk around the exhibitions, especially the Wayang Kulit shadow puppet displays.

Here you can daydream from pavillion to pavillion of times past where Java was a place of princes, princesses and evocative mystery stories.

The Water Palace used to be part of the Palace Gardens, a resting place, for meditation and romance, for reflection by the many pools and manicured gardens, these days there remains the pool complex with its tower from where past Sultans would spy on their concubines and the fantastic complex of underground tunnels that once led to private pavilions and still lead to the beach.

The Water Palace hosts a blend of architectural styles from Moor to Hindu, with a distinct Chinese influence and again it is possible to see how when cultures combine an elevation of art and beauty blossoms.