Authentic accent hard to find in Balinese fare<\/p>\n
By Degung Santikarma<\/p>\n
DENPASAR (JP): In the past year, a new trend in demonstrations
\nhas emerged in Bali. Unlike others of the same name, these
\ndemonstrations never have problems with the authorities, for
\nthey do not stop traffic, never challenge state ideology and do
\nnot block access to the regional legislature.<\/p>\n
There are no banner-bearing students or reformists and
\nradicals giving speeches. Still, knives flash, blood flows and
\nplenty of steam is let off. The demonstrators are not calling for
\nan independent Bali or for a halt to tourist development. In
\nfact, foreign faces dominate the crowd.<\/p>\n
These are local food demonstrations, held at hotels across the
\nisland, demanding a halt to the domination of pizza, pasta and
\nhamburgers on the Balinese buffet.<\/p>\n
Occupying center stage is the Balinese dish lawar, a complex
\ncombination of meat, spices, ripe jackfruit and coconut.<\/p>\n
Traditionally, lawar can be made from any kind of meat,
\nincluding pork, beef, chicken or -- until Greenpeace got involved
\n-- turtle. Its preparation is consummately conservationist, with
\nnot a bit of the beast going to waste.<\/p>\n
Skin, stomach, spleen, ears, feet, liver and blood all become
\npart of the messy mix, along with onions, shallots, pepper,
\ngalingale, coriander, ginger, lime and a heaping handful
\nof chili pepper.<\/p>\n
And lawar is not just nourishment for the body but, according
\nto Balinese custom, is considered to be sustenance for the social
\norder. It is a kind of "ritual food", prepared as an essential
\naccompaniment to the many ceremonies that punctuate Balinese
\nlife.<\/p>\n
Unlike most Balinese food, which women labor to prepare, lawar
\nis men's work. Gathering by the dozens in the bale banjar, the
\ncommunity meeting hall, they chop and stir and fry and season
\ntogether in a kind of bloody male bonding session. Laughing,
\nboasting and telling tales, they prepare this traditional
\ndelicacy to the rhythmic music of metal hitting the
\nchopping board and stone mortars pounding pestles, backed up by
\nthe cries of pigs squealing at the slaughter and stray dogs
\nbattling over whatever scraps might fall to the floor.<\/p>\n
At these food demonstrations, held in the air-conditioned
\ncomfort of five-star hotels, modifications need, of course, to be
\nmade to the original Balinese recipe.<\/p>\n
"Tourists who are worried about their cholesterol don't want
\nto consume all that fat," one restaurant employee explained.
\n"They can't handle all the red hot chili pepper and they think
\nthat eating blood is barbaric."<\/p>\n
Not only are the tastes tampered with, but also the
\npreparation and presentation. The lawar is made in the hygienic
\nenvironment of the hotel kitchen in order not to send guests
\nrunning to their rooms with a bad case of the infamous "Bali
\nbelly".<\/p>\n
For those foreign food fans unfamiliar with the art of eating
\nwith one's hands, the food is dished up on fine china with
\nsilverware on the side. But just like the Barong and Rangda,
\ntaken from their traditional abode of the midnight temple
\nceremony to perform for the morning round of culture-starved
\ntourists, lawar without the blood, without the sloppy fingers,
\nand, especially, without the communal setting, seems to lack a
\ncertain spice.<\/p>\n
Where, then, can one find the "authentic" tastes of Bali? As
\nBalinese take their place at the transnational table, competing
\nto cater to guests from all over the world, authenticity
\nhas become a commodity many seem to crave. Yet finding the real
\nBali deal is often about as difficult as scoring a "genuine"
\nRolex watch from one of the beach vendors in Kuta.<\/p>\n
Take, for example, the "authentic Balinese ristjaffel" offered
\nat one restaurant in Sanur. While it might please the palate with
\nits dozens of dishes, it's a Dutch colonial invention, not a true
\nBalinese offering.<\/p>\n
The famous Balinese nasi campur, the "mixed rice" sold in neat
\npaper-wrapped packages from sidewalk stands all over the island,
\nincludes such introduced items as tempeh, fermented soybean cakes
\noriginally from Java, and tofu, known to the older generation as
\n"Chinese cheese".<\/p>\n
Even the rice itself, in these days of economic crisis and
\ndwindling agricultural land, is unlikely to be the bona fide
\nBalinese staple.<\/p>\n
More often than not, it's either a Thai import or one of the
\nhigh-yield hybrids brought to the island as part of the World
\nBank's "green revolution" program. Even those fearless Balinese
\nfood fanatics who venture into the local night markets to sample
\nthe wares of the open-air warung food stalls would be
\ndisappointed to know they were ingesting items no more indigenous
\nto Bali than the fare at the Kentucky Fried Chicken up the road.<\/p>\n
Never mind that many of the vendors themselves are immigrants
\nto the island; some of their most palate-pleasing dishes include
\nLombok fried chicken and Javanese satay in peanut sauce.<\/p>\n
In fact, all this searching for the authentic has many
\nBalinese confused. For today's modern middle class, common
\ncultural rites of passage now include not just six-month otonon
\nceremonies and tooth filings, but birthday parties at McDonald's
\nand initiation into the wonders of Wendy's and Pizza Hut. And it
\nis not just the newly affluent who have welcomed the seemingly
\nendless array of eats Bali now has to offer.<\/p>\n
"Why do they want to eat fried rice when they can afford the
\nmie turis ("tourist noodles" otherwise known as spaghetti) at
\nthe fancy Italian restaurant? Don't they like their own food?"
\nwondered one older Balinese woman, bemused by the group of
\nauthenticity-hungry expats who invaded her small restaurant
\none night.<\/p>\n
For this woman, the modern mix of culinary commodities
\navailable in Bali meant not that her culture was being coopted by
\nWestern tastes but that she could include Washington apples,
\nAustralian oranges, Bangkok bananas and New Zealand melons in the
\nelaborately constructed offerings she prepared for the gods who
\ncame to feast in her family temple.<\/p>\n
After all, if the gods do not mind being fed with the foreign
\ndishes, what do more worldly guests have to worry about?<\/p>",
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