Despite rocketing prices people continue shopping
Emmy Fitri, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
At traditional markets in the city, people, mainly housewives, continued to shop despite the inflated prices of up to 40 percent of almost all food stuffs.
Many of them acknowledged that they had to shop as part of preparations to make Idul Fitri or Lebaran celebrations as festive as possible.
Many still believe that the Idul Fitri celebration would not be complete without particular dishes like opor ayam (chicken cooked in thick coconut milk sauce), ketupat (steamed rice cake in plaited young coconut leaves), rendang (meat simmered in spices and coconut milk) and sambal goreng hati (liver cooked in coconut milk and chili).
The rocketing prices of food stuffs and other goods ahead of Idul Fitri was accepted as something that just had to be coped with.
A middle-class household would have to spent at least Rp 100,000 at a traditional market for all the ingredients necessary for complete preparations for Idul Fitri meals from snacks to main dishes.
"My family has scrimped during the fasting month with simple meals and now I have enough money to shop for our needs for Idul Fitri," Wani, a resident of Tanjung Barat, said.
Like any typical Betawi (indigenous Jakartan) family, Wani said her family would be ashamed if visiting guests or relatives were not offered proper dishes.
"I don't buy much. What's important for me is to buy meat and chicken," Wani said when met at Kramat Jati market in East Jakarta. She was carrying dozens of ketupat woven cases and two plump chickens.
Another housewife who was met while shopping at Senen market, Wastuti, said that she had expected the price hike due to Idul Fitri but said she had to shop to prepare meals for the Lebaran celebrations.
"This is for the Lebaran celebration. I have been coming to the market for the past two days to finish shopping," she told the Jakarta Post, after buying five chicken. She was at the market the day before to buy ingredients to make cookies such as flour, sugar, margarine and eggs.
The prices of meat, chicken, chili, egg, potato, and other vegetables were almost the same in traditional markets like East Jakarta's Jatinegara, Kramat Jati and also in busy Senen market in Central Jakarta.
A kilogram of beef was now priced at Rp 45,000 from an earlier Rp 38,000.
Chicken sold for between Rp 14,500 and Rp 16,000 at the highest. Two weeks earlier a chicken sold for about Rp 10,000.
The price of red chili is now Rp 12,000 per kg from around Rp 10,000, while potatoes sold at Rp 3,500 from Rp 2,700. Meanwhile the price of eggs rose to Rp 8,500 per kg from Rp 8,000.