Life not so sweet for East Java's 'brem' cake makers
Life not so sweet for East Java's 'brem' cake makers
By Sulistyo Budi N.
MADIUN, East Java (JP): Apart from its place in the country's
history as the site of a Communist rebellion in 1948, this town
has also become synonymous with two famous foods.
There is pecel, a dish of blanched vegetables served with
peanut sauce and rice, which can be found at food stalls all over
the country. Perhaps even more famous is brem, a thin, golden-
colored, tart-tasting confectionery made of fermented glutinous
rice.
It is sold in markets, at stores and in bus and railway
stations for travelers (Madiun is a strategic point on the border
between Central and East Java) wanting to bring something back to
their loved ones.
The confectionery is also found in supermarkets and stores in
major cities like Jakarta, Surabaya, Malang, Yogyakarta and
Semarang. Some brands have become so famous that producers have
copied them and tried to pass them off as the original.
Life is not sweet, however, for many of the brem producers.
They live simple lives in their villages, operating out of part
bamboo homes and at the mercy of traders, who determine the price
of the sweet.
A "brem village" can be found in Kaliabu, Majayan, Caruban
regency, about 30 kilometers east of the city of Madiun. About 40
heads of family in this hamlet of 250 families are in the
business of producing the sweet.
Villager Karyono, 56, said brem was first made during the
Dutch colonial era, but at the time yeast was added to ordinary
rice. He said the results were probably not as good as today's
version with sticky rice.
Cut-throat competition in recent years has led to many
producers, including some in Kaliabu, taking shortcuts in trying
to sell their wares. Imitation may be the highest form of
flattery, or simply evidence of a lack of creativity, but the
Kaliabu traders acknowledge using the names of the two most
famous brem brands for their products.
Although the names have yet to be registered, one of the
producers, Kasan Solichin, said some of the producers claimed
only they had the right to use the brand-names.
The native of Lomongan, East Java, began producing the cake in
1982 but his business went bankrupt. He married a woman from
Kaliabu and started making brem again.
Business picked up in the early 1990s and he began selling
brem, under the name of one of the famous brands, at bus
terminals in the area. He has loyal customers and now employs
four workers -- three to mix the watery substance in the initial
stage and one to cut the sweet into pieces.
Kasan is capable of producing 550 packs of brem with every 100
kilograms of sticky rice that he processes. The sticky rice is
cooked in two stages in a large metal vessel with 35 kilograms of
capacity, from 7 a.m. to 9:30 a.m and from 9:30 a.m. to 11.30
a.m.
It takes 2.5 hours before the rice is done, provided that
firewood, not a gas stove or any other means, is used for the
cooking. After the rice is cooked, it is allowed to cool before a
fermentation agent is added and the liquid is mixed by hand.
It is then left for seven days, when about 65 kg to 70 kg of
liquid will be left from the original 35 kgs of rice. The liquid
is boiled, then chilled for several hours (usually 10) until it
is dry and can be cut into pieces as desired.
To make the sweet harder, the confectionery is put in the sun
for two hours to three hours.
It is a time-consuming process to make the sweet, and the
rewards are small for the father of one. Kasan's profit from a
pack of the sweet sold for Rp 825 to Rp 1,300 is only from Rp 100
to Rp 200.