A journey in search of Balinese cuisine

By Risa Permana Deli

DENPASAR, Bali (JP): The cultural activities that the Balinese are generally engaged in, whether or not in relation to efforts to lure tourists, seem to neglect the most essential human activity: eating.

Thousands of photographs about Bali describe its offerings but rarely its cuisine. There has never been a morsel of explanation that behind Bali's amazingly charming cultural wealth, the island has a long culinary tradition.

Bali is now part of the world tourism map but Balinese cuisine has yet to make its way onto the international culinary map. Look at Kuta. You can easily find European dishes -- French and Italian in particular -- either in small restaurants seemingly hiding in muddy alleys deep into the interior of Kuta, or in posh restaurants like Fabio, The Maccaroni and Uns, where the dishes are served in as sophisticated a manner as they are in their countries of origin, never without knives and forks, and wine.

Wine, the privilege of French cuisine, is now even produced in Bali. It maintains a touch of romanticism in the European culinary tradition.

In the past few years, there has been a great penchant for Thai cuisine. The ubiquitous presence of Thai restaurants across the island seems to tip Bali further off the international culinary map. A systematic check on standard restaurant menus shows a gourmand that it is next to never that Balinese cuisine occupies top billing. You will most likely come across fried rice and gado-gado (vegetable salad with peanut sauce).

Bali's culinary situation is worsening with an influx of victims of Jakarta's riots migrating to this island and opting to run a restaurant as their livelihood. Easily available now is the delicacy of chicken noodle soup Pancoran style, oxtail soup or chicken porridge; none, unfortunately, bears the mark of Bali. Where must one go then to find specific Balinese cuisine?

As an adventurer, I never make a tourist guide my main choice when looking for the unique aspect of a place. Where do I start? So, one bright and hot day, I went to a bookshop in an imposing shopping center, which must have been built thanks to Bali's flourishing tourism. I found only one book on Balinese cuisine, published by Periplus in three editions, English, Dutch and French.

That made me change my course and I tried to have more belief in what I had heard from some Balinese people. I had often heard of Ayam Betutu (roast chicken), but was also told that this dish is offered only in a traditional rite.

I began to ask some friends about Balinese dishes. They mentioned lawar (mixed vegetables teamed with meat and often fresh pig's blood), and babi guling (roast pig). In my previous trips to Bali, I had often eaten lawar, thin slices of pork or beef served with a plate of rice and sate lilit (meat wrapped around bamoo sticks). So I decided to find out more about babi guling. On an island where cows are held sacred, babi guling must be a delicacy. A friend whispered to me the location where I could find this dish. Somewhere in Gianyar Market.

Places are generally easy to reach in Bali as the government seems to have generously constructed the infrastructure, enabling people to go freely around the island. A trip to Gianyar would certainly be an easy one to make. So, one wet twilight, I set off for this location in a hired car that I had used all day to scour Ubud with a friend.

Busy market activities as night fell seemed to greet me when the car stopped before the market. Like any other traditional market across the country, the first thing that catches your eye is the confusion; then the food stalls in tents crowding the front of the market. I searched from one end to the other. Not all the tents announced what they had to offer. I was verging on utter despair, as it seemed to me that all the tents offered Javanese or Muntilan dishes, but no Balinese food, when the friend accompanying me indicated with her chin a food stall somewhere amid the tents. I was doubtful but my friend took me there confidently.

There was nothing special in sight except a roast pig with a few pieces cut from its back. The pig was on the table right before the diners. I was reminded of Peter Greenaway's film, The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and His Lover. There was no Richard Borihnger, the cook, but the roast pig on the table was as shiny and mouth-watering as what he offered by the end of the film. At the same time, I saw how everybody became a gourmand, enraptured by the delicious taste of the dish. A lady wiped her mouth, finding the dish too hot, while her husband was busy helping their sweating daughter eat her meal.

I watched the server's delicate movements as she prepared the rice on each plate delicately using the tips of her fingers.

These supple fingers seemed to be dancing, moving from one food container to another. First came the steamed rice, cone- shaped, and then a piece of sate lilit was placed erect following the slope of the rice cone, slices of pork were placed precisely at the top of the rice cone, then a fried spicy chunk of beef and a jackfruit dish with its sauce poured round the top of the rice cone -- all this seemed to emphasize the esthetics of the entire movement of preparing a plate of rice.

Then the same fingers tore a small part of the crispy skin off the roast pig to be placed, again, at the top of the rice cone. So, the entire dish-serving rite Balinese style was complete. And the girl would repeat the entire rite for each diner.

Then a middle-aged women collected the plates and took them to the diners. There was no "Enjoy your meal" or "Bon appetit", an expression one can hear in virtualy every restaurant in Bali. The sate lilit was eaten first, followed by the crispy pork skin and then the sauce and the rice.

Suddenly, I realized why the lady next to me and her daughter found the food too hot. Even for me, the sauce, which gave the entire taste and aroma to the rice and all its parts, was indeed too hot. Perhaps, chili is cheap in Bali. I was choked but this did not stop me from satiating all my eating passion. The pork was a bit tough but we were not alone. Just like any other diner, the two of us were fighting hard to dispel our hunger and curiosity as gourmands.

It began to rain heavily and under the tables a number of dogs, just as anthropologist James Dananjaya had described, moved around and smelled my bare feet. I saw my friend, like earlier diners, leave nothing on her plate.

Delicious! I could find no better word to explain what I had tasted that afternoon. Compared to other delicious meals we could have, the Rp 10,000 we paid for this dish was amazing. I was relieved that amid the invasion of foreign dishes in Bali, I could still find the dignity of a culinary culture, which, ironically, was saved by street-side food vendors.

It was getting late when I left the market, and the glow from the kerosene pressure lanterns in the food tents left an extraordinary reflection on the roast pig. My mind went to a painting by Goya.