Indonesian Diary Entry

28 October 2001 From Solo.

This is the end of the first week back in Solo. I suppose, like any homecoming it is always a bit more in the anticipation than in reality. The tears of separation were not exactly matched with a homecoming parade or other celebration. Indeed, it was very low key with a few “welcome back” stop-in visits at the office and little else. As that is my preference everyone gets what he wants (this time).

The coming and going elevates a consciousness of the differences between the places, the different types of accommodations, and the features of daily living. When you think about it, a traveler focuses primarily on just a few things: the sights, the places one stays, and the food. Perhaps because of the length of my stay in Indonesia, the places one stays and the food dominate. I’ll keep this entry to the subject of food.

First, the obvious disclaimer: a vegetarian talking about the food of a country is like a healthy adolescent talking about the quality of health care. My perspective on food is not broad, and the foods and venues for food that I have experienced are also very limited. So this discussion of food is strictly my own food experience. (If anyone reading this really interested, I can even suggest a book on Indonesian foods.)

I was thinking about this subject a few days ago when I was describing my time in Singapore (to the Indras). That was a period of about a half day, most of which was spent in a bed. It was in transit from home to Jakarta. I awoke and thought I would give the local food a try. After showering and dressing I journeyed out to see what was available. I was out a total of about 15 minutes, a period long enough to discover that English may be the primary language of Singapore, but it isn’t the language of the street, that the type of eating places near my hotel bore no resemblance to diners and cafes at home, and that the foods that people were eating for breakfast were vaguely familiar as dinner but in no recognizable form. (Some of the things in display cases were more familiar from the Boston Aquarium.) In defeat, I slunk back to the hotel for eggs, potatoes and rolls. How far the well intended can fall.

Since that day-one experience, my eating has fallen into two, or two and a half, categories: eating while in hotels, eating at home, and eating out (which is the half). Eating while in hotels has been made simple because most hotels have breakfast as part of the stay. The breakfasts have typically been either European or Indonesian. That is, they have typically had a choice. The Indonesian breakfasts are versions of lunch or dinner, and most involve meat in indirect form. There normally is a soup of some type, rice (often mixed with meat), some vegetables, and a few types of meat such as chicken or beef. The part of the breakfast that is most appealing is the fruit. Even more modest spreads have mango, melon, and pineapple, and maybe one or two others. The best breakfast award went to a hotel I visited in Jakarta, where the spread was beyond sumptuous. It really was so vast that I cannot describe it. Imagine a food you’d like to eat before noon, and it was there. Imagine a dessert that you’d like to have after dinner, and it was there. You get the idea. The other part of hotel eating is the rest of the day. Then, as a single, I would be catapulted to hunter-gatherer. The pattern I settled into was to look for someplace where one could eat that was not on the street or sidewalk, where the appearance was that dishes and utensils had been washed in reasonably fresh water, and where there was a menu from which to choose. Then I would either order something I recognized or if nothing was obvious simply tell the server that I wanted rice (or perhaps noodles) with vegetables and sauce. I could also normally get a side of tempeh or tofu. The only problem with this strategy took place one night when the helpful server asked specifically if I wanted “sauce” but in fact what he was saying was something like “sausage,” so a minor disagreement occurred when the food arrived. Tidak, apa apa. The sauces, by the way, are often peanut based and terrific.

The second standard food venue is home, and it is easiest to talk about food at the home of family Indra. Here I eat breakfast and dinner. Breakfast is a little different from dinner, but not dramatically. Rice is a staple. This is not like, one can get rice. This is like, you will have rice. Then there is typically some type of vegetable, and the family likes a kind of potato that is done in slivers and mixed with hot spices. It is remarkably good. Eggs are typically part of the breakfast, and fruit is a standard: mango and apple are the most frequent fruits. The one concession to me is that there is often a little sandwich that looks like grilled cheese, but has a mild jam in place of the cheese. Tahu is also a typical item on the breakfast table. If this sounds like a lot of food, you have the right idea. I have learned to be selective. The incentive to selectivity was my drowsiness as soon as I got to the university. Lunch is part of the eating out, see below. I typically arrive home between 4:30 and 5. We eat dinner around 7. So, late afternoon is snack time. The snacks vary from day to day, but they are most often what Westerners would call dessert. Yesterday I had my favorite snack, fried banana. Like many foods here, it is coated with a batter and deep-fried. A couple of days before that was a cake. One day the snack was a soup made with banana. Because I still like to eat dessert after dinner, I take a nibble of the snack, and then save it for later. Dinner is always great. The foods are spicy, and as varied as breakfast. Of course, the items are often the same. A couple of things that appear more often at dinner than at breakfast are tempeh and tofu, cucumbers, and quail eggs. The regular eggs are the product of the chickens kept in the yard. I believe the quail eggs come from the market. I should also state the obvious, shopping is done every morning. I should also repeat something I wrote in an earlier entry: the family has virtually gone vegetarian since my arrival. It is a little embarrassing, and I hope against hope that this is something they want to do and not just a concession to me. Nevertheless, it makes my life incredibly smooth.

The last category is eating out. There are two parts to this, lunch and meals out in Jakarta with friends. Lunch is eaten every day at the university, at a canteen (or kantin). The kantins are attached to the different faculties or colleges. Each Fakultas has its own kantin. They differ a little but basically they are open air sheds with an adjacent cooking area. The menu at each kantin is similar, but it seems to be constant. So the menu at Fakultas Ekonomi (my home base) is different from that of the law faculty, but each is a fixed set of offerings. The FE kantin is the one I now like best, but it also is overcrowded. And that I like least. So I move around a little, in part for variety, in part in search of a clean place to sit and eat. My lunch is pretty much the same from day to day, rice, vegetables, etc. The drinks at lunch are either tea, a kind of juice with water and sugar, and at some kantins bottled soda. One note to world travelers, I have ice with my drinks all the time. The advantage of polluted tap water is that it would make anyone deathly ill, so the ice is made from boiled water. (I hope this is not in the domain of famous last words.) Eating out, apart from the scavenging while in hotels, has been at a few nice restaurants. I have done this sufficiently infrequently that I can appreciate it. The food at the better Jakarta restaurants is excellent. It probably is not surprising that it is very similar to what one would find in a nice restaurant in the States, and it is a bit cheaper. Just to give one example, I went to an Italian restaurant one evening and the bill was about $17.50 (per person), including tip. With a bit more wine the bill would have been more as wine is often the most expensive thing – it runs $5.00 a glass and up. As I say, occasional visits to nice restaurants are enjoyable. But as for my own palate, eating at home with the Indras (and before, in Yogya with the Coles) is more of a treat. I don’t have wine with dinner, but I have yet to have a meal that doesn’t merit a standing ovation. Selamat makan.