8 Most Confusion Facts About Eating Culture in Indonesian That Most Foreigners Not Quiet Understand

For some foreigners that just learn about Indonesia, one of the most confusion things that they are dealing with Indonesian is the "table-manner" and eating culture. Indonesia has quiet interesting way to dealing with food, in which some foreigners might find it "ridiculous" or maybe "confusing".

Here are The List of 8 most "common facts" about eating culture in Indonesia that some foreigners find still difficult to understand.


1. CAN'T LIVE WITHOUT RICE
Maybe the most confusion facts about Indonesian's eating culture is this fact. You will surprise to see that most people in Indonesia are very depending on rice. Almost all meals (breakfast, lunch, and dinner) must have rice (of course with condiments, like chicken, beef, vegetables, and others...). Without it, they will consider themselves have not eat yet, and will having a "starvation syndrome", such as not focus, always feel hungry, tired, and can't think straight.

So, when you are inviting Indonesian people to have lunch or dinner together with you, make sure you are serving rice to them. If not, they will keep hungry and you will surprise to see their appetite, in which can keep eating and eating without feel full, until they eat a plate of rice. Don't believe it? Give it a try ...



2. RICE + NOODLE = PERFECT !!!
While many Indonesian love to eat rice, you might be also surprise to know that some of them like to eat it together with noodle. Yes, rice and noodle are a perfect "food combination" that some Indonesia love to eat (including me .... ^_^...). How could it be?

Indonesian most favorite menu ....

Well.... actually this culture is starting long time ago, when Instant Noodle started to popular in Indonesia early 80's. Besides the taste is delicious, Instant Noodle is very cheap. Even now, the price for the pack of Indonesia's instant noodle can be considered as the cheapest in the world. For 1 pack (@80 grams), you can get for about Rp 1,500 - 2,500 (around US$ 0.12 - 0.19). Can you imagine that? Not even a dollar for a pack of Instant Noodle !!!

In recent years, many flavor have been introduced to Indonesian market, and most of them are very fit with Indonesian's tongue, such as Chicken Carry Flavor, Beef Meatball Soup Flavor, Tomato Soup Flavor, Sate Flavor, Beef Stew Soup (Rawon) Flavor, Chicken Black Pepper Flavor, Cakalang's Fish Flavor, Tom Yam Flavor, Bulgogi Flavor, Traditional Fish Carry (Laksa) Flavor, etc.

For some reason, especially when it's already mid of the month, where many people considered it as "financial crisis time" (Indonesian called it "Bulan Tua", a slang word to describe that condition), Instant Noodle is the "dishes" that can be used and eat together with rice. So they can choose any kind of "fancy dishes" - such as Rendang, Chicken Carry, Sea Food, etc - in Instant Noodle's form.

Nasi Goreng Mawut

Besides treated as "fancy dishes", some people have creative way to eat rice and noodle : they make fried rice mix with noodle. Many people in Central Java love to make this kind of mixture, and called it "Nasi Goreng Mawut" (The Mix Fried Rice and Noddle).

Some foreigners might be thinking, "This is the most dangerous food combine with biggest amount of carbo I ever seen. Nobody can eat this kind of stuff, for health-sake !" Well... in Indonesia, you might be wrong...



3. STINKY BEAN? YUMMY .... !!!
One of most favorite dishes in Indonesia, especially Java's Island, is Stinky Bean or Petai Bean. Well known as "Pete" (read like : phe - tee) or "Petai" (phe-thai) by local, Stinky Bean is one of the famous condiment that usually eat together with hot rice and traditional chillies. For the most favorite kind of Indonesia's Chilli, you can see the list here. But sorry... it written in Indonesian.

For people who have not taste Stinky Bean before, it smells like armpit sweat, combining with socks and Hong Kong's Feet's smell. Try to imagine the smell while you eat your dinner, and then you can ask yourself, "How can they (Indonesian) eat this kind of meals?"

Pete (Left) and Jengkol (Right) : Two most famous "powerful smelly" Bean

The good news is : This bean is not always available. Mostly it is available around July - October. So if you come to Indonesia beyond that time, you might not seeing it. But if you "must" come around that time, make sure you never order "Petai".

Another type of stinky food (similar with "Petai Bean") is "Jengkol". If "Petai" is small and green, "Jengkol" is more big and yellow. It taste like potato when you eat it. But once it's inside your mouth, then you will smell some "strong and unique" smell that might make you feel not comfortable to swallow it. Usually Jengkol is served as dishes, cook with thick brown carry. People who know very well how to cook it, can make the stinky smell of "Jengkol" disappear. However, if they don't know how to cook, "Jengkol" can smell very strong. Local people usually jokingly called it as "Indonesian Fries" because of the taste and look.

So if you are not so sure can eat it, never challenge yourself to eat "Petai" or "Jengkol" during your trip in Indonesia.



4. EATING IN "RUMAH MAKAN PADANG"
One of the most common restaurant you might ever see in Indonesia is "Padang Restaurant" or simply called in local language as "Rumah Makan Padang". It sold specially dishes from Padang, one of the major city in Indonesia that located in West Sumatera.

Padang Restaurant is very famous and available in every city (even in every corner of every street) of Indonesia. It is not franchise restaurant, and each one of them are belonging to individual own. Although not established as franchise restaurant, all "Rumah Makan Padang" have the same restaurant set-up that make them well-recognized : All restaurants are displaying all of their dishes in front of the restaurant (put on the glass display), so people can see the available menu in the restaurant..

For foreigners who just first time to visit this restaurant, you might be surprise to see "many things" in the restaurant.

Stunt performance in Padang Restaurant

First, you will see a very attractive stunt : the waiter is holding a stack of plates consist of many dishes on his 2 hands.

Second, you will also see how quick he spreads all of the plates from his hands to your table, without spill even single drop of dishes' sauce from the plates.

You might be thinking, "I must eat them all? Are you out of your mind? It's not even my order ...!!!"

Finally, you will be surprise to realize how many dishes on your table. You might be wonder, "What the hell is this? This is not my order. In fact, I have not order any dish yet...!!"

This is how to eat in "Rumah Makan Padang" : When you come to "Rumah Makan Padang" you can do it in 2 ways. First, you can come to food display and choose the dishes you like by pointing at the dishes. The waiter will take if for you, and serve it with rice.

Second, you can just told the waiter that you want to eat, then you just sit on your table. Within a minute, the waiter will bring the stack of plates on his hands, and spread it on your table. You don't have to eat all of the dishes. You just eat what you want to eat, then the waiter will count ONLY the dishes you eat.

Most of the dishes that serve in "Rumah Makan Padang" are very tasty and delicious. One of their most well-known and popular dish is "Rendang", which is beef-meat cooked with heavy and thick spice gravy sauce. Rendang has been branded as one of the most delicious food in the world.



 5. CHILLI, CHILLI, AND CHILLI
It becomes a culture for most of Indonesian to eat their meal with chilli as their companion. There has a wise-words in Indonesia said that "no matter how bad is the meals, as long as there has tasty chilli, everything will be delicious". As mentioned earlier, there are many kinds of chilli in Indonesia. Each city and restaurant have its own "trade-mark" of chilli.

Due to the fact that "good chilli" can make everything tasted delicious, you might able to see there are some Indonesian can eat plain rice with chilli.

And due to the fact that most Indonesian love chilli, don't be surprise to see many Indonesian can eat big amount of extremely super-hot chilli, and seems like nothing is happening to their stomach. They can put many (even too many) chilli in their soup, dishes, or rice, and can eat normally. Well... I can eat chilli like that too, but not as extreme as they do....



6.EATING RAW VEGETABLES
West Java region has its own specialty for its dishes : They serve raw vegetables! Yes, it's true. Not for decoration, but for eat. Most restaurant that served traditional dishes usually served raw vegetables as condiments and eat together with rice, cooked-vegetables, soup, fried chicken, and others. They called it "Lalapan" or "Lalap" (means "raw vegetables").

There is no obligation for you to eat it (even it's served to you as condiment). But if you want to feel the taste of "freshness", you can try out some of them. The most common raw vegetables that served are : Cabbage, baby eggplant, mint leaves, long bean, and cucumber. In some places (especially "high-class restaurant"), they also include tomato,cherry tomato, and lettuce.

Normally, people eat "lalap" by dip the vegetables to the chilli, or simply eat it raw. According local people, eat raw vegetables are much more fresh and healthy. All minerals and vitamins are still in the vegetables, so when they consumed the vegetables in raw, they got all of it. For Foreigners, it might be quiet "challenging" because the vegetables usually not wash well using sterile or hygiene water. Also, most of the vegetables are being hold using bare hands by the waiters.

Even the raw vegetables are not treat well, and might be not hygiene while been eaten, there are never have any report about people who suffered stomachache after consumed it.



7. CRACKERS
Crackers (or known as "Kerupuk" in Indonesian) are one of the most famous snack in Indonesia. You can find it in most of big cities in Indonesia. Each city has its own crackers and become trade-mark of the city.

Kerupuk Aci

In South Sumatera, there has "Kerupuk Kemplang" (made from fish and tapioca flour), meanwhile in Central Java it has "Emping" (made from crushed gnetum bean), and West Java has "Kerupuk Aci" (made from tapioca flour).

Kerupuk Kemplang

Some people eat cracker as snack. But some others use it as additional dishes for lunch and dinner. In some restaurant, they are serving crackers as dishes. You can eat it together with rice and other dishes, or just eat as snack. In some dishes, crackers have become one of the additional ingredient. Like "Soto Betawi" (beef or beef offal, cooked in a whitish cow milk or coconut milk broth, with fried potato and tomato. Very popular in Jakarta), usually has additional crushed "Emping" on it.

Emping

In West Java, it has a traditional fruit salad called "Rujak Beubeuk" (sour and chilli crushed fruits). The unique thing is : people eat this fruit salad using "kerupuk aci" in which not a common way to eat fruit salad.



8. FRUITS TURNS TO DELICIOUS DISHES
Like some exotic countries (Thailand, Caribbean, and Hawaii), fruit have been using as ingredient for their dishes. But mostly they use pineapple.

Gudeg from Yogyakarta (Central Java)

In Indonesia, the thing is different : You might find some more fruits that been used for ingredient. Besides pineapple, you might also find dishes using fruit ingredient, such as mango, jack-fruit, melon, banana, lime, and even The King of Fruit : Durian.


In West Java, there are "Sambal Mangga" / Mango Chilli (fried chilli with additional mango). In Central Java, there have "Gudeg" (green jack-fruit sweet stew). In West Sumatera, it has "Nangko" (jack-fruit's carry). And the extreme one : In South Sumatera, we have "Tempoyak" (fried sweet fermented durian), one of the most famous traditional dishes in Sumatera.

Sambal Tempoyak (Red Hot Chilli Tempoyak) from South Sumatera

The taste of those dishes? Sweet. Tasty. Nice. And Exotic. Very difficult to describe, but I can say - since I live in Indonesia and have eat them since I was very young - all of them are very great food, and I love them all.

All of them been treated as main dishes, eat with rice and other dishes, such as fried chicken, vegetables, and others. For some people, this combination might be "not usual" (eating rice with sweet dishes). But if you like exotic things, surely you are going to like them.