From the old into the new with tasty fare

From the old into the new with tasty fare

Suryatini N. Ganie, Contributor/Jakarta

Though we Indonesians actually have no special traditional
celebrations for New Year's Eve and the first day of the new
year, many people here have the custom of gathering with friends,
family or close relatives.

Gatherings can be in the intimacy of their homes, or by
following the trend of celebrating it in restaurants or hotels
offering special menus to pass the evening until midnight.

Long forgotten in urban areas are the evenings when there was
no TV, and those wanting to experience the excitement of going
into a new year had to pass the evening with some special
traditional games. One of those games -- next to playing cards --
was the traditional dakon in Javanese or congklak (a board game
with receptacles) in other local languages.

The dakon is a piece of wood, about half a meter in length and
mostly taken from an easy to carve wood variety, like from the
stem of the sawo (sapodilla) tree.

To make a piece of wood into a dakon, one has to carve two
lines of seven small wells and two larger ones at the end of each
line. Playing the dakon was done with the dried pits of the
tamarind fruit in the inland, and with small shells in the
coastal areas.

In each well there will be an uneven amount of pits or shells
to begin the game with. It will be mostly five, seven or nine
pieces. The player who begins the game is mostly the eldest one
or chosen by manner of when, at the count of three, the players
put out one of the fingers of the right hand.

Traditionally, the winner is the one with the small little
finger if the other has shown his thumb and looses when one of
both players shows his forefinger. The winner of thumb versus
forefinger is the thumb! Ringfinger and middle finger are never
used!

Then the winner has to move the pits or shells along the
wells, leaving one pit or shell in each well. After both had
their turns the winner will be the one who was able to put all
the shells or pits into his bigger well. Some families have
several dakons and then a dakon match was organized! The games
were mostly done after dinner.

But playing makes one hungry and traditional snacks were
kacang bawang or salty garlic-flavored fried peanuts, and kue
semprong wijen, sesame covered sweet "oublies". So hopefully the
New Year will be sweet and savory.

As a beverage, strong kopi tubruk will be preferred, just some
spoons of ground coffee, sugar to taste and boiling water. For
the novice, wait until the sediment settles and then drink it!
Or, a ginger drink is preferred by the female audience.

Today the artistically carved family dakon is only available
in antique shops or sold by a dakon maker from the inland of
Central Java. Those dakon are still in the original state,
roughly made and not yet painted, mostly bought by villagers.

Back to hunger pangs; old dishes and snacks enjoyed are also
forgotten and new creations are taking the place of often more
"solid" ones.

A dish on New Year's Eve in the middle of last century was the
nasi goreng bumbu, spicy fried rice with chicken stock which was
spicier than the nasi goreng of today.

For those tender palates avoiding chili, this culinary veteran
makes for easy cooking for New Year's Eve, providing you have a
rice cooker on hand, because the authentic method comes with a
real able cook!

But because we are going from old to new, why not change the
preparation methods of authentic recipes into more contemporary
ones?

Another forgotten dish is the famous besengek, which can be
made either simple or opulent, according to the ingredients used.

For vegetarians, it could be made from soybean products like
tofu or tempeh or both, egg for ovovegetarians and for those
preferring chicken, it will be also delicious. Beef is of course
the optimum! The dish prefers to be a renown one in foreign
countries because when eating in a restaurant in the Netherlands
it will be nearly always on the menus.

Time never stops and tastes are also changing in Indonesia's
kitchen because so many foreign produce are planted with good
results here. Take the potato, formerly a "European" vegetable
but now omnipresent: dishes like sambal goreng, for example, or
semur (stew), you name it! Even some traditional gado-gado
(steamed vegetables served with peanut sauce), like gado-gado
Padang has Mr. Potato among its ingredients.

To finish the old, going into the new awakens nostalgic
moments. Many of us serve their most favorite snacks which now
are available in many a bread or patisserie outlet, like
"Amsterdammer oliebollen", "Mutzemandeln" or "Berliner" for my
family. Serving them on many New Year's Eves, they are an
indelible part of going from the old into the new.

Wishing everybody a Selamat Tahun Baru, Happy New Year, and
hopefully tomorrow will be better than today!