Despite rocketing prices people continue shopping
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.