Kramat Raya offers food for Ramadhan
Kramat Raya offers food for Ramadhan
By Gedsiri Suhartono
JAKARTA (JP): It is past high noon, a flock of food vendors is seen carrying their merchandise along Jl. Kramat Raya in Central Jakarta.
In less than an hour, signs of percolating fanfare marks another chance for the vendors to reap their fortunes. As soon as it strikes 2 p.m., people start striding along the walkway, browsing for food to make merry their breaking of the fast meal at dusk.
The dozens of stalls along the strip offer similar menus from West Sumatra regional food specialties, snacks and various kinds of kolak (sweet compote stewed in coconut milk and sugar).
Around 35 stalls offer light sweet snacks, popular among Moslems to break the day's fast. The lack of diversity in the selection of food signifies the vendors mostly obtain their merchandise from the same source.
These generic sweet items include wajik (sweetened gluttonous rice cubes), klepon (gluttonous rice balls filled with brown sugar), layered regular and gluttonous rice cakes and chilied tapioca chips.
"It's much more practical and less expensive," said one merchant in reference to why people obtain food there instead of cooking at home.
That the kolak is homemade is obvious by the huge pans filled with kolak, compared to the generically bought kolak in plastic bags.
Buyers unfamiliar with the hors d'oeuvre may have difficulty in distinguishing the better quality lemang, a gluttonous rice mixed with coconut milk and roasted in bamboo joints, from the ordinary snack. At this point, buyers have to trust their intuition: what does one's sight and sense of smell relay to one's mind and stomach?
A hearty appetite for a particular morsel is, thus, the best opinion shaper these food vendors can get -- much more effective than any persuasive advertising method ever invented. Who can resist turning one's head to see what the majority of people seem to enjoy?
A plateful of steamy rice and spicy side dishes are irresistible and are a convincing lure to passersby perplexed by which stall they should stop at and what to eat.
Specialty foods, such as rendang itik (marinated curried duck and spices) or kari kambing (chopped mutton in spicy coconut sauce), are often sold out soon after stalls open for business.
Other popular items include crispy eels, chilied beef jerky, fish head curry, and Nasi Kapau, rice mixed with vegetables and side dishes of choice.
"We aren't quite sure why most foods offered are Padang specialties. Maybe because a Padang merchant started this place," a seller who calls herself Mar told The Jakarta Post.
People who suffer from claustrophobia should opt for early shopping because the strip will turn into a congested area for both diners and shoppers when Maghrib, the dusk prayer coinciding with the breaking of the fast, approaches.
People swarm almost every food stall. Outsiders could get the impression that free food was being offered. So crowded is the serving area that it is difficult to distinguish the customers from the sellers.
People clamorously order and rush off with food to places where they can eat their meals. The spectacle of people eating while standing is as common as seeing colorful finger bowls decorating the roofs of cars parked nearby, while the owners eat their meals inside their vehicles.
History
In the last two years, the strip of road across from the Senen Market in Central Jakarta has gained prominence as being a center for busy Jakartans to buy food to break their fast during the fasting month, Ramadhan.
During the fasting month, Moslems do not eat or drink from dawn to dusk.
How the strip came to be a food center is unclear to most merchants.
Some say it started with five sellers back in the 1970s, when selling goods on the strip was illegal and merchants risked being caught in raids and being fined.
One seller said that in 1992, the Jakarta city administration decided to make business on the strip legal.
Now regular vendors own spots they claim as theirs after paying Rp 900,000 per square meter to the city mayoralty. This amount guarantees facilities such as bars to set up tents, water, electricity, security and overall cleanliness of the compound.
Temporary vendors who have not purchased a spot are required to pay Rp 200,000 per month to have their spots and right to conduct business ensured, said Lies, a temporary merchant during Ramadhan.
Maintenance fees are requested daily from these small merchants. The amount is calculated by each stall's width. Small snack merchants, for example, have to pay only Rp 2,500 while a wider stall with a brisk business has to pay as much as Rp 22,500 per night.
Tati, a widow with five children, told the Post that the fees collected are reasonable. She sells mostly generic snacks.
"As a widow I get some sort of dispensation," she said, "I only have to pay Rp 1,700."
Some admitted that business on the strip is based solely on their wish to earn lots of money and, therefore, most vendors merely emulate their predecessors on the strip.
Rumors have it that merchants may earn up to Rp 1 million a night.
"I don't know where they get that figure," said Mar, a snack merchant.
"I only earn enough to get by with my six children," Tati added.
The size of each business is different. Some vendors merely get by on a day-to-day basis, while others can employ up to 15 people to help run their businesses.