Balinese Food The Traditional Cuisine & Food Culture of Bali

207 Pages·2014·4.83 MB·English

by  Vivienne Kruger

Balinese Food
The Traditional Cuisine
& Food Culture

of Bali
Balinese Food
The Traditional Cuisine
& Food Culture

of Bali
Vivienne Kruger
TUTTLE Publishing
Tokyo Rutland, Vermont Singapore
Published by Tuttle Publishing, an imprint of Periplus Editions (HK) Ltd
www.tuttlepublishing.com
Copyright © 2014 Vivienne Kruger
Photos © Vivienne Kruger, except for the following:
Front cover main photo: © irman/istockphoto.com; Front cover inset: © KellyOla/istockphoto.com; Color insert pages 1 top: ©
magicinfoto/Shutterstock.com; 1 middle: © Henry Stockton/Shutterstock.com; 3 top, middle, bottom: © www.murnis.com and ©
www.jonathaninbali.com; 7 middle: © Gail Palethorpe/ Shutterstock.com; 9 top: © Marat Dupri/Shutterstock.com; 13 middle: ©
Redchanka/Shutterstock.com
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including
photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior written permission from the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Kruger, Vivienne L., 1950-
Balinese food : the traditional cuisine & food culture of Bali / Vivienne Kruger, Ph.D.
pages cm
Includes index.
ISBN: 978-1-4629-1423-4 (ebook)
1. Cooking, Balinese. 2. Food habits--Indonesia--Bali (Province) 3. Bali Island (Indonesia)--Social life and customs. I. Title.
TX724.5.I5K78 2014
641.59598’62--dc23
2013040457
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contents
Dedication and Thanks
Introduction
chapter one
Sacred Ceremonial Cuisine: Food of the Gods
chapter two
The Balinese Kitchen: Hearth and Home
chapter three
Traditional Village Foods: Cooking in the Compound
chapter four
Snacking on Bali: Warung, Markets and Banana Leaf Wrappers
chapter five
The Balinese Bumbu: A Sacred, Powerful Paste
chapter six
Breakfast in the Morning of the World
chapter seven
Dewi Sri and the Cult of Rice
chapter eight
The Hanging Ketupat Basket: Rice on the Run
chapter nine
Babi Guling and the Balinese Pig: From Secular Sausages to Sacrificial Offerings
chapter ten
Bebek Betutu: The Balinese Duck
chapter eleven
The Village Chicken: Ayam Kampung
chapter twelve
Seduced by Saté: The Balinese Twist
chapter thirteen
Seafood in Bali: Bounty of the Ocean
chapter fourteen
The Perils of Penyu: Ritual and Dietary Turtle Meat
chapter fifteen
Bali: Emerald Vegetarian Garden of Eden
chapter sixteen
The Sweet Life: The Balinese Palate Falls in Love
chapter seventeen
Fruits of Bali: Nectar from the Trees
chapter eighteen
Sacred Refreshments: Smooth Healing Ambrosia
chapter nineteen
Traditional Village Drinks: Creeping Green Vines and Sweet Ginger Tea
chapter twenty
Sweet Spirits, Hot Arak Nights and the Gods of Wine
chapter twenty-one
Kopi Bali: The Heavenly Coffee
Balinese Equipment
Balinese Ingredients
Balinese Resource Guide
Index
Dedication and Thanks
T
his book is dedicated to the extraordinarily beautiful young Bali-Hindu goddess Saraswati.
Seated atop a pure white multilayered lotus flower with her loyal white swan mount at her feet,
Saraswati is the revered goddess of literature, wisdom, science, music and the arts. She is
worshipped by everyone interested in knowledge and learning, especially students, teachers, scholars
and scientists.
I also dedicate Balinese Food to my beloved, precious, beautiful Balinese dog—and constant
companion—Chessie. With love and protectiveness and loyalty, my sweet Chessalopolis sat right by
my side, watching me and guarding me during virtually all of the joyous, creative, multi-year writing,
tasting and photo-taking process. Chessie and I lived side by side, body to body and soul to soul with
each other; we shared the same karma and the same road towards enlightenment. Very special thanks
goes to Starbucks on Jalan Pantai Kuta, Starbucks in the Discovery Mall (Tuban), Starbucks on
Orchard Road in Singapore (Plaza Singapura) and in Waikiki, Oahu (Hilton Hawaiian Village), USA.
My pretty black and white border collie patiently sat underneath the table at every single Star-bucks
from our home base in Kuta and Tuban in Bali to Karangahape Road in Auckland, New Zealand, to
her favorite place in the world—Waikiki Beach in Hawaii. My little girl watched me write and
rewrite every single page of this extreme love affair with the food and food culture of her native
island of Bali.
Special gratitude goes to Wayan Sarma, long-time friend and driver from Pelaga village,
Sanggingan-Ubud, who patiently accompanied me as I trekked through muddy rice fields to
photograph dragonflies on the wing and ducks on the march, and to distant experimental agricultural
farms where he sampled Bali’s famous kopi luwak (civet droppings coffee) for me. Wayan showed
me almost every edible food source on Bali, from rice field eels to wani fruit, from taop nuts to
barrel-cured speckled black eggs. We sat together on a wooden bench at the famous Gianyar night
market to feast on Bali’s classic mixed rice dish, nasi campur, and to photograph buckets of blood-
blackened Balinese urutan sausages. Wayan drove me to ramshackle rural village stalls, known as
warung, to sample delicious finger bananas, tulip-shaped kue mangkok offering cakes and freshly
made jaja gina rice cakes.
Extra special thanks also goes to another long-time friend and driver in Bali, Gede Kasena from
Desa Jinengdalem, Singaraja, who patiently sat with me through endless food conferences and nasi
goreng (fried rice) lunches in the mountains of Pacung to answer my most persistent questions about
Balinese foodstuffs and cooking. With a happy heart, ready smile and spotless soul, Kasena
generously enlightened me about Balinese eating culture and village produce, from the countless
species of chili peppers to intriguing varieties of edible yard-long beans to ceremonial turtle lawar.
Blessed with Balinese grace, intelligence and kindness, Kasena was my most important living local
dictionary. He knows everything about Bali and this book would not have been possible without him.
Spiritual thanks go to my yoga teacher and friend in Darwin, Australia, Sanjit Das, who patiently
explained the constellation of gods, kings and heroes in the ancient Hindu epic, the Mahabharata. In
the legendary tale of the great warrior Yudisthera rests the ancient nexus between steadfast dogged
myth and lunchtime dog satay in warung throughout Bali.
Academic acknowledgment is awarded to the elegant state-of-the-art Parliament House Library in
Darwin, Australia. As a visiting scholar from the United States, I was accorded innumerable research
privileges, kindness and Internet courtesies by head librarian Gaynor Lovett and librarian Suzie
Young during the initial stages of this work. The library fortuitously maintained an invaluable
Indonesian language resource on their reference shelf: Alan M. Stevens and A. Schmidgall-Tellings,
A Comprehensive Indonesian–English Dictionary (Ohio University Press, 2004 and 2010 editions).
As a social historian with a Ph.D. in American history from Columbia University in New York, I
wanted to produce a meticulously researched and comprehensive storehouse of hard-to-find
information on Balinese cuisine, encompassing all aspects of traditional village food found, grown
and consumed on the island. I first began to write about Bali in the late 1990s, producing a number of
culture articles for Bali and Beyond magazine (2000–6). I have special memories of working with my
talented editor at Bali and Beyond, Debe Campbell. During these years, I also wrote a large number
of reviews of published books about the island of Bali, which still appear on www.amazon.com. I
then spent eight years (2005–12) doing field research on the extraordinary foods and peoples of Bali,
during which time I lived in Bali for two years. Earlier and shorter versions of the chapters in this
book appeared in the Bali Advertiser (www.baliadvertiser.biz), Bali’s most widely distributed
English-language expatriate newspaper in Indonesia after the Jakarta Post: 13,000 copies are printed
twice each month. I was fortunate enough to be asked to write their monthly food column (“Food of
the Gods”) for two years, from 2006 to 2008. This was a very fertile breeding ground and test run for
my own Balinese cultural cookbook.
I am enormously grateful to a large caste of Balinese cooks and villagers throughout Bali. They
guided me well with open hearts and took me inside many cramped compound kitchens during my
spice-laced odyssey through the culinary Ring of Fire. Thank you to the hundreds of smiling, giggling,
helpful friends everywhere in Bali, among them Mr and Mrs Dolphin (Warung Dolphin), Made Janur
and Iloh (Janur Dive Inn), Justine Friedman (owner of the Akar Cafe), Iluh Padmi Antariasih (whose
father is a powerful village balian), Australians Moira and David (owners of the Dolphin Beach
Holiday Apartments), and my loyal friend and massage lady Yoni—all in Lovina on the north coast of
Bali. Mr Dolphin was gracious enough to send me many international sms’s to answer my emergency
questions about local red snapper and mysterious coral reef fish! Endless thanks go to my very good
friend Mega Barbara Ngoei from Jakarta; we had the best fun and food parties and food orgies in
Lovina in 2009!
Special gratitude goes to another very good friend, since 1993, in Kuta, Eka Noviyantie,
originally from Jakarta but resident in Bali since childhood. Eka helped me immeasurably with this
amazing food journey, speeding off on her sepeda motor (motor scooter) to buy me nasi jenggo in the
local market and sending me many sms’s about my urgent jaja and Balinese roast duck dilemmas!
When I am in Bali, Eka accompanies me everywhere—to the fabulous Hard Rock Hotel for Mexican
quesadillas and to Matahari Department store for tropical sandal shopping. Eka made phone calls all
over Bali to help me get formal permission to use the beautiful Balinese recipes in this book. When
Beachie (my dog Chessie’s mother) died inside McDonald’s in 2012, Eka and Kasena drove this
precious dog to a veterinarian for a special Balinese cremation ceremony, performed from the heart
with love, honor and kindness.
On a plane trip from Bali to Darwin, I was also fortunate to meet Balinese ecologist I Wayan
Mudita, who teaches at the Faculty of Agriculture at Nusa Cendana University in Kupang, West
Timor. He was kind enough to spend a great deal of time and effort helping me track down some of
the most beautiful edible leaves in Bali: daluman, bulan baon and salam.
Additional thanks go to Ni Wayan Murni and Jonathan Copeland in Ubud, who blessed me with
many original recipes; Urip Sudiasa and wonderful chef I Wayan Sudirna at the Tanis Villas in Nusa
Lembongan; the Puri Lumbung Cottages in Munduk; Cok Oka Derana, a Balinese prince from
Guwang, and my little sister Miss Era and her real sister Sri in Seririt, who gave me food, family
recipes, cooking demonstrations and insight into the ancient, divine cooking on the spectacular island
where the gods live.
Introduction
T
his book on the traditional cuisine of Bali bears witness to Bali’s time-honored village
cuisine. The legendary beauty of Bali is mirrored in both its creative culinary arts and its food
culture. Three million Balinese share the same small green jewel of an island and the same culinary
worldview. Together, they embrace a deeply ingrained cultural and spiritual understanding of ancient,
divinely ordained foods, food preparation methods, cooking skills and motivations. They also live in
complete culinary and philosophical harmony with nature—with the island’s lava-enriched soil and
with the flora and fauna, mysterious sea life and rare spice gifts that govern their exotic equatorial
cuisine. The preparation of Balinese food is steeped in divine rituals and religious perfectionism.
We, as curious Westerners, can only gape in awe as we struggle to learn how to eat and make food
offerings on the island of the gods. Balinese Food breaks new ground in its study of Balinese culture
and the extraordinary people of Bali, approached through the unique vehicle of their traditional
cooking rites. Curious cooks elsewhere now have an unprecedented opportunity to absorb the
anthropological, agricultural and practical village context in which traditional Balinese food is so
painstakingly created.
The many faces and pleasures of Balinese food and drink spring to life in Balinese Food as it
explores the social, cultural, ceremonial and religious implications of taking nourishment eight
degrees south of the equator. As a paean to Balinese cooking culture and customs and its contribution
to world food, we appreciate each dish in a unique spiritual context and on a grand historical scale.
Balinese Food is divided into twenty-one chapters, each enriched by two or three easy-to-follow
popular Balinese recipes. These step-by-step guides enable readers to recreate the unique food
culture of Bali in the comfort of their own home. Two sections of color photographs enhance each
chapter’s food themes, recipes and artistically prepared dishes.
Balinese Food celebrates the island’s culinary bounty set in the shadow of lava-packed
volcanoes. Written from the perspective and worldview of the people of Bali, the book casts first
light on the previously unexplored secrets of Bali’s virtually unknown cuisine, kitchen layout and
apparatus and culinary mindset. Except for the ancient and sacred lontar texts, the Balinese have an
oral rather than a written tradition of information preservation and transmission. It is therefore left to
Westerners to record and archive Bali’s food heritage. Authentic traditional Balinese food is hard to
find outside the villages because the secrets of the island’s cuisine, along with the preparation of the
food itself, is steeped in religious ritual and devout Bali-Hindu belief. Three million peasants by day,
three million artists by night, the Balinese carve and etch and paint their food into the rich spiritual
shapes and divine colors of fragrant holy temples and imposing royal palaces. They build and they
labor and they cook only to please and honor their gods.