The Real Taste of Indonesia

Posted: 28/06/2010 12:55:39 p.m.

I really wanted to love this book. I first visited Indonesia when I was a back- packing traveller in the seventies.  Jakarta was a frighteningly exhausted city with thousands of pilgrims packing the airport in their mission to get to Mecca. The city was dirty, crowded and polluted. By contrast Bali was paradise on earth. Cool, green and plenty of space to relax and breathe clean air everywhere except at the bus station in Denpasar. And everywhere the food was a revelation. Spicy, always spicy, with the tang of smoke as it seemed every meal was prepared over fire. 

I’ve been back. Last year I was at the Ubud Writers’ Festival, and the same smoky, spicy experience cropped up every time I ate, whether I was eating suckling pig (babi guling) in the market or tasting the crisp spicy prawns for staff dinner in a restaurant kitchen. 

I think it’s that smoky spicy experience that’s perhaps lacking in this book. It’s pictorial, well set out and very clear to follow. There are a ton of superbly spicy aromatic recipes that I would quite happily cook, or be served. I love gado gado (there are two versions), and all the other vegetable dishes which have great appeal and a wealth of flavour. There are lovely chicken, fish and beef recipes that will be completely unfamiliar and utterly delicious to readers and cooks who have not visited these islands. 
As I read through, it dawned on me that this was a collection of families recipes, possibly gathered by Dutch colonialists and settlers, and so they have been adapted and possibly altered as they have travelled. There’s nothing wrong in that, as that is how food moves around the world. Cooks will find plenty here to experiment with. But I do wish there were more stories about just who collected these recipes and whether they remain truly authentic to their past. 

The Real Taste of Indonesia 
A culinary journey – 100 unique family recipes 
Published by Hardie Grant Books 
Rrp $45.00