Author tells of a life in Bali, with recipes<\/p>\n
Bruce Emond, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta<\/p>\n
Amid the flurry of preparations for the opening of Janet De Neefe
\nand her husband Ketut's first restaurant, Lilies, in Ubud, Bali,
\nin 1987, an employee stepped forward with a sheet of paper in his
\nhand.<\/p>\n
It was a local government edict about what should be served up
\nto foreign tourists -- potatoes, boiled food -- and what should
\nnot (\"the tourist does not like chili\").<\/p>\n
\"Bland\" was written in big letters across the top.<\/p>\n
Today a resident of Bali for almost 20 years, the proprietor
\nof two successful restaurants, Indus, and Casa Luna, and an
\ninstructor in Balinese cookery classes, Australian-born De Neefe
\nbegs to differ when it comes to holding back on the spice shaker
\nin deference to supposedly more delicate Western palates.<\/p>\n
\"You can just knock out some of the smaller chilies if you
\nreally have to. Just leave out the bird's-eye chilies, but don't
\ndo anything to the ginger and fragrant spices,\" she said from her
\nhome in Bali.<\/p>\n
\"Look at Thailand, they just cook it the way they like it.\"<\/p>\n
De Neefe put down in writing her experiences in mastering
\nBalinese cuisine and as an expatriate adapting to life in a
\ndifferent culture in 2003's Fragrant Rice
\n(Flamingo\/HarperCollins).<\/p>\n
There is the initial fear that it might be yet another of the
\nmortifying self-absorbed \"stranger in a strange land\" treatises,
\nan incredulous examination of the lack of mod cons in the
\nmythical land of gently swaying tropical palms and smiling but
\ninscrutable natives.<\/p>\n
Thankfully, it is not the above but more along the lines of
\nthe engaging works by expatriate artists and others from the
\n1930s: From her opening description of her arrival in Indonesia
\nas a teenager on a family holiday in 1974, De Neefe reveals a
\nnatural, graceful writing style and an obvious love for her
\nadopted homeland (the book is subtitled \"my continuing love
\naffair with Bali -- a taste of passion, marriage and food\").<\/p>\n
She wittily recounts her personal learning curve with cultural
\nblunders after she married Ketut in the early 1980s, but she also
\nprovides eloquent descriptions of the culture of Bali and, of
\ncourse, her love for food. A respectful work, it never treat its
\nsubject with an untoward, fawning reverence.<\/p>\n
\"I was always one of those kids who was in the kitchen, baking
\nPavlovas,\" said De Neefe, whose mother was of Maltese descent. \"I
\nthink you grow up with a passion for food, it's in your blood.
\nThose were the days, when you went to your granny's house and the
\nfood was wonderful, done from the heart, not from a packet.\"<\/p>\n
Fragrant Rice is about a love of food, for sure, and includes
\nmany recipes, but it could hardly be categorized as a basic how-
\nto cookbook.<\/p>\n
\"It's a bit of this, a bit of that,\" acknowledged De Neefe,
\nwho is also one of the organizers of the Ubud Writers and Readers
\nFestival. \"The thing was that I originally wanted to do a
\ncookbook. In 1985, I started to record recipes, and along the way
\nI started to realize that I was also delving into the culture. It
\nwas like unraveling a mystery, and I realized in the process that
\nyou can't write a cookbook without delving into the culture.\"<\/p>\n
Teaching about cooking helped her mentally file her
\nexperiences over the years.<\/p>\n
\"In cooking classes I would recount a story, and people would
\nsay, 'You have to put that in the book as well'. Not just food,
\nbut in making herbal poultices and medicine. So it grew into my
\nlife in Bali, with recipes. It had a life of its own.\"<\/p>\n
With careful use of spices such as garlic, ginger, chilies,
\nturmeric and coriander, but without as much coconut milk as in
\nother regional cuisines, Balinese food is a full-on experience
\nfor culinary adventurers up to the task.<\/p>\n
\"It's slightly sharper, more pungent: It's like a kecak dance,
\nit's really got guts. There's no dilly-dallying, but it's vital,
\nlike a shot of energy. But there are also the more subtle
\ndishes.\"<\/p>\n
De Neefe said home was where the heart of Balinese cuisine was
\nreally found.<\/p>\n
\"You should try it in a home, preferably in my home! And you
\nwould have to get a granny to go out there,\" she said about
\nsetting up Balinese restaurants in foreign countries.<\/p>\n
She said her own palate had been fine tuned to the subtleties
\nof flavors over the years -- \"I'm a bit of a pain to go out to
\nrestaurants with now\" -- and she remains captivated by the
\nvenerated place of food in society, especially in sharing it with
\nothers and the care that still goes into cooking in the home.<\/p>\n
But she is not a stodgy purist, refusing to change with the
\ntimes. She believes Lilies was the first restaurant in Bali to
\nfuse local with Western cuisine and she encourages people to
\nexperiment, but the process has to be handled with care.<\/p>\n
\"The danger is confusion. Some things just don't go together
\nclassically, or some flavors, like fish and kencur (resurrection
\nlily). You can play around with ingredients as long as it is
\ndelicate, but some things are best left alone. If I see a menu
\nwith four or five different things in it, I think that it just
\ncan't work.\"<\/p>\n
She is heartened by the development in warung (sidewalk food
\nstalls) in Bali -- \"it's still a warung, but a bit brighter and
\ncleaner\" -- and that Indonesians are starting to appreciate their
\nfood more.<\/p>\n
\"It's becoming more exciting all the time, and I think locals
\nare catering more for locals. It's growing as the locals come to
\nrealize that they have a cuisine that is delicious. They're
\nrealizing it's great food.\"<\/p>\n
www.casalunabali.com<\/p>", "url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/author-tells-of-a-life-in-bali-with-recipes-1447893297", "image": "" }, "sponsor": "Okusi Associates", "sponsor_url": "https:\/\/okusiassociates.com" }