BALINESE FOOD

It isn't easy to find genuine Balinese food. Sure, the hotel restaurants have a token babi guling on their menus but the dish is so modified to suit sensitive Western palates as to render it unrecognizable. Though Balinese food ranks behind Java's in subtlety, variety, and creativity, it is still an unusual and respectable Asian cuisine. Unfortunately, it doesn't travel well. In the entire length and breadth of Jakarta there is not a single Balinese restaurant. Even on such important ritual occasions as weddings or family rites of passage, the Balinese themselves serve a majority of Javanese or Chinese dishes and not Balinese. Since dining out is not a social custom on Bali, the visitor is not likely to experience real Balinese cooking unless invited into a Balinese home. About the only place to consistently experience the real thing are the night markets and warung. In your homestay, talk your way into your hostess's kitchen and sample some homemade Balinese meals. Every household prepares dishes in different ways. The most delectable, subtle foods-even banquet foods-are prepared with two burners, one wok, and a steamer pot. Balinese food is so hard to find because it's usually only prepared for hundreds of people on special occasions. Since coconut oil goes bad very quickly and refrigeration is limited, preparations for such perishable, difficult feast dishes as mebat and lawar are begun early in the morning, labored on through the dawn, and eaten fresh later in the morning.
     The two or three meals the Balinese eat each day are almost identical-lots of boiled white rice supplemented by tiny fish, vegetables, peanuts, cucumbers, chilis, and minute portions of spiced meat, egg, or tempeh. In inland areas, dried and salted fish is more common.
     In poorer areas, the rice is mixed with corn, cassava, or sweet potatoes. There are no courses. In a sense, there are no mealtimes. Food is prepared when hunger comes in the morning and is left in pots under protective baskets on the kitchen table to partake of whenever desired. Except during ceremonial feasting, the Balinese are very modest eaters. A glass of warm water or tea accompanies the frugal meal, which is often eaten cold.
     Balinese cuisine is to be eaten with the fingers so that none of the delectably spicy flavors are compromised by the taste of aluminum. The Balinese always eat with the right hand, taking three fingers full of rice, dabbing it into spiced side condiments like sambal, then popping it into their mouth with a quick flex of the thumb. Eating is almost the only activity the Balinese prefer to do alone. It's bad manners to speak to a Balinese while he's eating. Having helped himself to some rice, and mixing it all up with his fingers on a banana leaf or a plate, a Balinese will go off by himself and sit in silence and with great haste scarf his food, gulp a glass of water, and then after a cooling kretek cigarette be on his way.
     For those who would like to learn more about Balinese cooking, the 120-page The Food of Bali (Periplus Editions), edited by Wendy Hutton with recipes and photographs by Master Chef Heinz von Holzen, contains such recipes as suckling pig, lawar, various sate, sambal, leaf-wrapped fish, and rice desserts. The book costs Rp30,000 at hotel bookstores.

Ingredients
The Balinese will eat almost anything that crawls, flies, swims, or walks: worms, frogs, flying foxes, snakes, porcupines, anteaters, lizards, wild boars, centipedes, grubs, crickets, flying ants, bee larvae, birds (bones and all), crayfish. Dog is reputed to be an aphrodisiac rendering a man hot and strong through the night. It's also believed that dog meat is good for asthma. A Balinese kid will take you dragonfly-catching using a long thin wand (tempilan) with a sticky end that catches the gossamer wings. After catching them, they take the wings off, fry the bodies in coconut oil until crisp, then eat them with spices and vegetables. Dragonfly larvae (belauk) are harvested in footprints in the rice fields, then fried, boiled, or grilled wrapped in banana leaves and eaten with rice and sambal. A Balinese family will smoke live bees out of a beehive, break the hive up, then soak it in water for about an hour. A mild spicy sauce is then stirred in and the resulting pulpy mass, complete with grubs, is parcelled out in banana leaves and grilled. Very tasty. Rice field eels (belut), which look like baby snakes, are caught at night, usually by feeling them with bare toes squirming in the mud. After cleaning, they're cooked over glowing embers and the next day served up crisp and salty. They're eaten whole, head and all-a bit chewy but good. Frogs are another source of protein from the flooded rice fields, caught by young children at night in a special hourglass-shaped bamboo trap.
     Rice: All traditional Balinese food is designed to complement or be complemented by rice, a plentiful crop grown on the country's terraced paddies. Rice is so important to the Balinese that their word for "to eat" and "to eat rice" is the same (ngajengang). The Balinese ardently worship a rice-goddess Dewi Sri of pre-Hindu origin, and a complex series of rituals accompanies each of the plant's growing cycles, just as if the rice were people. There are dozens of words to describe the various stages of growth of rice and the variety of ways it's cooked.
     Ordinary uncooked white rice is called beras. Steamed rice is nasi kuskus, steamed in a special cone-shaped bamboo cooker called a pengukusan (which tourists often mistake for field hats). Rice is cooked just once daily, in the mornings. As it sours quickly in the tropical climate, what has not been eaten by nightfall is fed to the pigs. For the Balinese, the whiter the uncooked rice, the tastier it is when cooked (although all the nutrients have been taken out). Turmeric (kunyit) is often added in the cooking to give rice a yellow coloring. Not only is rice the basic ingredient of every meal, but it's used to make rice wine (brem) and a giddy variety of colorful sweet cakes (jajan) used in temple offerings.
     There are a number of varieties of rice grown on Bali. When buying white rice (beras putih), try the old-fashioned, short-grained paddy rice, beras asli or beras bali, which is considered more flavorful than the newer long-grained rice and other "improved" dwarf varieties. One can easily distinguish beras bali from the new high-tech rice. Its grains are oval-shaped, while the dwarf grains are long and needle-like. Beras bali is also three times more expensive. Red rice (gaga) and black glutinous rice (injin) are also grown, but are scarcer and more expensive.
     Vegetables and Greens: Bali's abundant vegetation and relatively few edible animals have led its inhabitants to adopt a semi-vegetarian diet. Bali is blessed with over 100 vegetables (jukut), including such exotics as acacia leaves (tuwi), bean pods (buah pete), spinach-like greens (bayem), edible ferns (paku), sweet potato leaves (kesela pohon), tasty banana plant flowers (pusuh biu), and tender shoots of banana leaves (kekalan). Leaves of bamboo, mangoes, peanut (don kacang), and papaya (don gedang) are also used in cooking. Raw greens, as in our green salads, are seldom eaten. When the housewife needs instant vegetables or herbs to round out her dinner, she forages leaves from plants, shrubs, or trees in her backyard, washes and then boils them up with grated coconut and such spices as MSG and basa genep. Periodically, rice fields are dried out for a season, and other crops such as sweet potatoes (ubi), peanuts (kacang tanah), maize (jagung), lima beans (kekare), sugarcane (tubu), and various types of beans (kacang) are planted. Cassava (ubi kayu) is grown on the dry Bukit Peninsula. Bangkuwang, a root vegetable similar in texture to the Chinese water chestnut, is eaten raw or with rujak. The Balinese leek, bawang pere, is a frequent ingredient in the Chinese dish cap cay. The onion family is also well represented. Tuwung butuh is a solanaceous vegetable which means "bull testicles." Because of its climate, the mountains around Bedugul on Lake Bratan grow the island's widest variety of temperate-zone type vegetables-cabbages, tomatoes, string beans, mustard leaf, cauliflowers, peppers, white potato, eggplants, avocados, carrots, celery, cabbage. Visit Bedugul's market at Candi Kuning to behold great piles of giant European vegetables.
     Spices and Condiments: The Balinese consider Western food flat and tasteless. Their own food tends to be peppery and served with such potent spices as mashed onions, garlic, fermented fish paste, and scalding red peppers. The most ramshackle warung can bring forth an array of exquisite dishes with flavors, textures, and aromas that you never dreamed existed: tingling ginger sautes, rich and creamy peanut sauces, and spice-laden chili sambal toppings that will fire the palate. Surprisingly, one seldom comes across the spices-nutmeg, pepper, mace, and cloves-that gave the "Spice Islands" their name and spurred Columbus to accidently discover America. The job of having the proper spices on hand is made easier for the Balinese housewife with the purchase of a bag of basa genep, mixed spices, which contains a good portion of the 40 or so spices used in Balinese cooking. Spices are ground into a paste in back of the family compound, using a black stone mortar (batu basa) and cone-shaped pestle (cantok); buy a set in Denpasar's market for Rp10,000.
     A crucial spice in Balinese cooking is sra, a ground and putrid shrimp paste which has been dried and mixed with seawater, then allowed to ferment for months. Having the consistency of toothpaste, sra is fried first to bring out its flavor; a pea-sized amount is enough to give a racy, briny dimension to a whole dish. Sra has no substitute. Some standard spices include a gritty sea salt (uyah), black (mica selem) and white (mica putih) pepper, candlenuts (tingkih), tiny, mild, pear-shaped red onions (bawang barak), ginger (jahe), coriander seeds (ketumbah), sour tamarind (celagi), and garlic (kesuna). Aromatic roots and leaves, MSG (monosodium glutamate, or pitsin in Balinese), and citrus juice (lemo) are added for extra flavoring. Laos powder (isen) is another exotic Indonesian spice. Bright orange-yellow turmeric (kunyit), a root of the ginger family that resembles a small carrot, is frequently used in Balinese festival dishes to produce yellow-colored rice.
     Coconuts (nyuh), an essential ingredient in Balinese cooking, add richness to many native recipes, especially curries and sauces. Frying is done exclusively in coconut oil. At least 12 varieties of nyuh, either green or yellow, are found on Bali. When they are old and dried out, they turn gray. Able to produce fruit for 50 years, the coconut provides the Balinese with vessels, clothing, soap, cosmetics, housing materials, food, and drink. Coconut milk is made by shredding the meat of the old coconut, kneading, sieving, then blending it with water. As it cooks, the coconut milk thickens; with the addition of flour or corn starch it becomes a thick, white, rich cream (santen). Balinese-style sate is often kneaded into coconut cream. The sweet, creamy contents of the young coconut (kuwud) also makes a refreshing drink. Any boy or man can shape a spout and spoon of the coconut husk to allow you to drink from the nut or scrape out the pulpy meat.
     Chilies (tabia), the elongated pods of the Capsicum pepper family, turn from green to red when ripe. Usually the larger the size, the milder the chili. The largest sizes are used principally to decorate offerings, but the smallest (tabia kerinyi) are highly flammable! Chili bushes grow easily inside the family kampung, and chilies are plucked as needed. Chilies are de rigueur in any kind of sambal, and thin slices of chili go into the spicy-hot, salty, and popular Balinese soybean sauce called kecap (pronounced "KECH-ap") which has nothing to do with tomato-based catsup as we know it. In restaurants there are almost always two kinds of kecap, sweet (kecap manis) and sour (kecap asin). Indonesian-made Western-style tomato ketchup is only available in Bali's restaurants. There are many kinds of hot chili sauces (sambal) and spiced chili pastes. Almost every dish has its own kind of sambal, and every Balinese family makes its own a little differently. But don't get the idea that all Balinese food is hot. Many dishes are quite palatable to the Westerner. Peanut sauces made with chilies and unsweetened coconut cream top the Indonesian delicacies most enjoyed by Westerners. When in doubt as to whether the dish is spicy hot or not, ask "Pedas atau tidak?" ("Hot or not?"). If the dish is too hot, don't try to douse the fire with a glass of cold water, cold beer, or a carbonated drink, which only exacerbates the problem. Instead, eat some boiled rice, cucumber, a banana, or some bread. To make a dish less fiery hot, squeeze a little lemon with some salt over it. Or drink hot tea or warm water which will sting at first, then bring relief.

Typical Balinese Dishes
In virtually every hotel-from majestic to humble-you can order a "Balinese Special Feast" with only 24 hours notice. Though a Westernized, toned down version, it will give you a taste of Balinese/Indonesian food. Tum is ground beef and spices wrapped in banana leaf and steamed. Be tambus is boiled fish served with a thick spicy sauce and sliced tomatoes. Above all, don't miss roast steamed duck (bebek betutu) stuffed with spices and vegetables, wrapped in banana or betel nut leaf, then smoked to perfection for three or four hours in a ground oven or rice steamer. Though bebek betutu is a big hit with most Westerners, some complain it has too many bones. The Balinese like to snap all the tiny bones off at the end and suck out the succulent marrow (sum-sum). The best steamed duck is cooked in Peliatan.
     Most of Indonesia is Muslim, and the eating of pork is forbidden by the Islamic religion. Thus pigs are absent on Java but run all over Hindu Bali where they are bred and cooked magnificently. Bali's famous delicacy, babi guling, is a whole pig stuffed with tapioca leaves, red chilies and onions, garlic, green peppers, turmeric, ginger, aromatic leaves, candlenuts, and whole peppercorns. The pig (weighing four to six kg) is then stitched together, skewered, and roasted (guling means "to turn") very slowly on a spit over a low coal fire for three hours. Brushed with crushed turmeric, the flesh turns juicy and tender, the skin brittle and covered with a golden-brown glaze.
     Although tourists are told it's roast suckling pig, the pig is usually way past the suckling stage. If your homestay does the cooking, one small pig serves four or five. Although a ceremonial meal, you can find babi guling in many markets and specialty street stalls at any time of the year. Sample it in the traditional way with rice, spicy sausage made from the innards, stuffing, crackling, pork lawar, boiled jackfruit, and vegetables.
     Very possibly the best babi guling in Bali is served in several crowded warung on the main road to Candidasa in the Banjar Tegas compound next to Terminal Gianyar in Gianyar Town. These warung, which don't normally open before 1000 or 1100, roast more than a dozen animals a day and the food is always fresh and delicious. Try a glass of the refreshing native brew, tuak, while you're at it.

Warung and Roadside Stalls
Along Bali's road sides are small eating stalls-consisting of a dirt floor or bamboo platform, a palm-leaf or plastic canopy, and a bench or two-which dispense quick meals as cheap and nutritious as anywhere in the world. These roadside foodstalls and cafes offer a mixed fare of coffee, tea, cakes, biscuits, rice cakes, peanuts, and homemade spirits. They may even serve complete meals, usually served cold on a banana leaf. Warung that serve only coffee (kopi) and biscuits (kue) cater particularly to the menfolk who stop there to gossip, read the newspaper, or listen to the radio before returning home. Sit with the farmers and sip a glass of foaming tuak while sampling some rice treats wrapped in banana leaf (nasi bungkus). If you want a dish served heated, say "Yang masih panas." Temple festivals and village markets are the best places to find these flimsy, makeshift eateries where you can sample such truly native Balinese snacks and treats as rujak, babi guling, original paddy rice, fruits, vegetable mixes, spicy sauces, boiled corn-on-the-cob, roasted and steamed bean pods, crunchy baby peanuts which look like corn kernels, and high-protein sweet potatoes served with coconut, palm sugar, and kecap.
     Serving as meeting places for young and old, warung also make excellent language labs for learning Indonesian. These coffee shops also sell domestic supplies such as kerosene, lamps, batteries, cigarettes, needles, buttons, medicine, dried fish, and salt. Even the smallest country villages have five or six warung. At night the warung could be the only well-lit place in the whole village.

Pushcarts and Mobile Kitchens
The Balinese snack at all hours of the night and day. Even the streets of the tourist centers (except Nusa Dua) are filled with vendors selling cheap food for the thousands of Indonesians working in the shops, cleaning hotels and restaurants, and driving taxis. Food is prepared from the freshest ingredients right before your eyes at one-quarter the price you'd pay in a restaurant. Just sit on the curb to eat and join in conversation with the Indonesians beside you. As they push their carts along, these vendors make distinctive sounds with their voices or with implements that signal their specialty: noodle soups, nasi and mie goreng, bakso (beef meatball), sate, Arabian pancakes (martabak), tahu gunting, rujak, poisonous-looking iced syrups, steamed sweetmeats, beans, sticky cakes, fruits, peanuts.
     Whole kitchens also dangle from shoulder poles. These sellers set up at street corners and even along the beaches dispensing leaf or newspaper cones full of soggy, newly steamed peanuts, boiled peanuts (kacang cina malablab), peanuts fried in oil (kacang cina magoreng), fried without the skin (kacang cina kapri), or roasted (kacang cina manyanyah). The Balinese are addicted to small, green beans called kacang ijo, which are also available around the clock, fried, boiled, or roasted.

Balinese Festival Foods
Balinese banquet food is as sophisticated as any of the world's great cuisines. Women cook the daily meal, but only men may prepare the festival dishes. Great banquet chefs admired all over Bali are in demand at the more important feasts. On these occasions the assembled guests sit in long rows while members of the banjar weave amongst them, setting before each a small square banana leaf on which they place all the principal dishes: a pyramid of pure white rice topped with fried beans (botor), crushed peanuts, crispy baked grated coconut, dried kunyit, and various delicacies. Five principal banquet delicacies are prepared on special family occasions and important religious holidays like Galungan.
     Mebat centers on turtle; for even a small amount of mebat, one wild sea turtle must be killed-in inland areas, they use pork instead. Lawar, one of the dishes that make up a mebat ritual feast, is a mixture of uncooked grated coconut, young jackfruit, tree leaves, sauce, long slivers of meat, and the obligatory spices, all of which is pounded and chopped to the consistency of lawnmower mulch. Pig's blood is mixed with lawar only if requested because it goes bad in an hour. Ask for either the "red" (mixed with blood) or the "white" (not yet mixed with blood). The best and cheapest lawar is sold at open-air warung set up at festivals, cockfights, and other village events. Sayur urap, similar to lawar, is vegetables, corn, and beans mixed with tamarind leaves (celagi) and grated coconut to create a creamed vegetable dish (best in Klungkung). Sate, another ritual food, is made from pork, chicken, duck, or turtle. Savory leklat (or sate lembat) is diced turtle meat with a spiced paste kneaded in santen, then roasted until crisp over coals.
     Sea turtle (penyu) is a specialty of the Denpasar area. Turtle meat spoils easily, so a meal containing turtle meat must be cooked and eaten within 24 hours. Sacrificed in the wee hours of the morning, the shell, flippers, and head are severed from the body, and for some hours afterwards the jaws snap hideously and the entrails twitch violently on the beach. The blood of the turtle is collected and diluted with lime juice to prevent coagulation. The skin and meat are chopped very finely and prepared with spices, coconut, and even raw blood (in dishes like kiman, lawar, and gecok). At the rate these endangered wild creatures are being slaughtered, turtle-based dishes will soon disappear. To see how depressing it can get, visit Pegok, a suburb of Denpasar. Tourists shouldn't contribute to the slaughter.
     Communal meals for a family or village feast often take at least a full day of preparation, sometimes starting late at night and carrying on until morning. If you really want to experience the old Balinese way of presenting a royal banquet, attend Puri Krambitan's "Puri Night" in the village of Krambitan in Tabanan Regency.
     Variation in texture is an integral aspect of the classical meal-mushiness (lawar) and juiciness (pork) is always accompanied by crunchiness (pigskin) and dryness (krupuk). To guarantee the freshness of the meat and sauces in Bali's tropical climate, the men are awakened in the middle of the night to slaughter the turtles and pigs. Food containing coconut, a central ingredient of so many Balinese dishes, must be eaten the same day. At about 0400 on the morning of the ceremony the men will gather, each carrying a large heavy chopping knife (berang). While sitting cross-legged on bamboo mats on the floor of the bale banjar, the men are busy cooking, scraping coconuts, chopping meat, stirring big black pots, preparing mountains of spices, and constructing altars and sheds. The women make offerings, carry water, and cut out lamak decorations. The many chefs return home soon after dawn to their families carrying their portions which are immediately devoured with relish by all.