As they say, “chart the country’s cuisine and one can chart its history”, this is very true for Indonesia being the world’s fifth biggest country inhabited by two-hundred-fifty ethnic groups; the marvelous ethnic diversity paired with its “wave upon wave” cultural influence, has made the world of Indonesia food a pleasurable arena for culinary adventurers.
The native techniques of Indonesia food cooking and ingredients merged with influences of China, India, the Middle East, and Europe, as well as the products of the New World brought by the Portuguese and Spaniards even before the island was colonized by the Dutch, has transformed its cuisines into a haven for the palate.
The central and western Indonesia food, particularly their main meal, is normally cooked late during the morning, and eaten around midday; unlike the usual meal time hours, a lot of Indonesian families don’t have a set meal time in which every family member are expected to be present, and so the majority of their dishes are cooked in such a way that it can last and still be suitable for eating even if left for hours at room temperature. These same foods are then re-heated for their final evening meal.
The staple diet of Indonesia food is nasi or rice, which is substituted with corn, cassava, sweet potato, and sago in some parts of the island. The spices of Indonesia food make its native cuisine exceptional; although almost all types of international cooking can also be found in Jakarta, the most famous being French, Korean, Japanese, and Italian.
Visitors should always keep in mind that Indonesia food is always highly spiced fitted to the taste of Indonesians. So look out for small, fiery hot green and red peppers on your food, including vegetable and salad dishes. One of the most excellent Indonesia foods is that of seafood which are highly featured on menus, including lobsters, prawns, oysters, squid, shrimps, crabs, salt and freshwater fish, and shark.
Coconut is a favorite ingredient for cooking; vegetables and fresh fruits like papaya, bananas, oranges and pineapple which are obtainable all through the year are also Indonesian favorites. Tourists who are visiting Indonesia for the first time should try out their national specialties such as Nasi uduk, rasi rames, campur (rice dishes), Rijstafel (Dutch mixture of various fish, meats, curries, and vegetables), and Soto (soup dish with chicken, vegetables, and dumpling), to truly savor the real Indonesia food cooking.
Visitors “eating” their way through Indonesia have found it to be an enjoyable way to really appreciate the countries cultural crossroads, not to mention making them ache for one more “bite”.
Indonesia Food Books
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Eat Smart in Indonesia: How to Decipher the Menu Know the Market Foods & Embark on a Tasting Adventure (Eat Smart Series, No. 3) List Price: Sale Price: $8.63  |
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You may go to Indonesia for puppet theater and white beaches, but you'll return dreaming of nasi goreng (fried rice) and opor ayam (spicy coconut chicken). Still, there are so many Indonesian treasures that you might have tried, if only you'd known how to ask for them, and felt reasonably confident of the ingredients... |
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Hidden Hunger: Gender and the Politics of Smarter Foods Sale Price: $24.95 |
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For decades, NGOs targeting world hunger focused on ensuring that adequate quantities of food were being sent to those in need. In the 1990s, the international food policy community turned its focus to the "hidden hunger" of micronutrient deficiencies, a problem that resulted in two scientific solutions: fortification, the addition of nutrients to processed foods, and biofortification, the modification of crops to produce more nutritious yields... |
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Cradle of Flavor: Home Cooking from the Spice Islands of Indonesia, Singapore, and Malaysia List Price: Sale Price: $21.45 |
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The first book to reveal the undiscovered jewels of Southeast Asian cuisine.Just when you thought you knew everything about Asian food, along comes James Oseland’s Cradle of Flavor. Oseland has spent two decades exploring the foods of the Spice Islands... |
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Authentic Recipes from Indonesia (Authentic Recipes Series) List Price: Sale Price: $9.37 |
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Authentic Recipes from Indonesia includes over 60 easy-to-follow recipes with detailed descriptions of ingredients and cooking methods, enabling the reader to reproduce the flavors of the Spice Islands at home... |
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Jamu: The Ancient Art of Herbal Healing List Price: Sale Price: $9.61 |
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Just as India has Ayurveda and China has its traditional medicinal system, Indonesia has jamu: an integrated system of inner and outer health and beauty. Indonesian jamu has a 1,200-year-old history but is virtually unknown outside of that country... |
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The Food and Cooking of Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia & Philippines: Over 300 recipes shown step-by-step in 1200 beautiful photographs List Price: Sale Price: $14.00 |
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A complete guide to these exotic cuisines - the food culture, ingredients and recipes |
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Indonesian Cooking: Satays, Sambals and more List Price: Sale Price: $9.96 |
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Indonesian Cooking is Chef Dina Yuen's culinary exploration of the world's largest and most diverse archipelago—the fabled Spice Islands of Indonesia. This is a vibrant, multi-layered nation with a fabulous and largely unexplored cuisine—and her easy-to-follow recipes now make them accessible to everyone... |
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The Oxford Companion to Food 2nd Ed List Price: Sale Price: $39.36 |
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Alan Davidson's Oxford Companion to Food has been over 20 years in the assembling, but here it is; and it is superlatively worth the wait. In fact, superlatives fall silent. A huge and authoritative dictionary of 2,650 entries on just about every conceivable foodstuff, seasoning, cuisine, cooking method, historical survey, significant personage, and explication of myth, it is supplemented by some 40 longer articles on key items... |
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Everyone Eats: Understanding Food and Culture List Price: Sale Price: $14.68 |
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Everyone eats, but rarely do we ask why or investigate why we eat what we eat. Why do we love spices, sweets, coffee? How did rice become such a staple food throughout so much of eastern Asia? Everyone Eats examines the social and cultural reasons for our food choices and provides an explanation of the nutritional reasons for why humans eat, resulting in a unique cultural and biological approach to the topic... |
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Stolen Harvest: The Hijacking of the Global Food Supply List Price: Sale Price: $9.00 |
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ContentsIntroductionChapter 1 The Hijacking of the Global Food SupplyChapter 2 Soy Imperialism and the Destruction of Local Food CulturesChapter 3 The Stolen Harvest Under the SeaChapter 4 Mad Cows and Sacred CowsChapter 5 The Stolen Harvest of SeedChapter 6 Genetic Engineering and Food SecurityChapter 7 Reclaiming Food Democracy |
Posted by Irwan on March 15, 2011
