Hot and Tasty of Indonesian Food Versus Fast Served American's

Once morning in late summer 2002 my friend's wife, Lisa, called all her children to have breakfast together. My friend-Bill and I already sat at the dining room table and waited for it. In the mean time we talked about our plan. Two young girls and two young boys were running in from the family room, leaving their lazy morning and sitting in their own chairs. By that time we were all ready for breakfast, Lisa was preparing it fast. She opened the fridge, took a bottle of milk, frozen strawberries and cherries and a cup of yogurt, and put them on the table. While she grabbed three boxes of cereal, her oldest daughter was jumping up from her chair and helping her take out seven bowls and seven spoons. In less than twenty minutes, the breakfast was ready. After saying a prayer, every one of us took a kind of cereal we liked, put them in the bowl and poured milk over it. James, their third child, took several spoonfuls of yogurt in an additional to his cereal and milk, while Gabriel, their youngest son, preferred to add frozen strawberries on his cereal. It seemed that their two daughters liked just cereal with milk. Bill and Lisa ate the combination of frozen strawberries and yoghurt. I followed James's example, and added some yoghurt on my cold cereal. I saw everyone enjoying his or her breakfast.

While eating cereal and cold milk, my mind flew back to my parents' dining table. I imagined that my mom would be busy on early morning like this, preparing a hot breakfast. First of all, she would boil a pot of water on one stove and would steam rice on the other stove. Waiting for the water to boil, she would prepare eight cups; pour some condensed milk in them and fill one cup with three spoons of powdered chocolate; that one is for me. After ten minutes the hot water would be ready. She would pour it into those cups, brings them to the dining table and then cover them to keep them from getting cold.

Making fried rice is the next thing she does. For this purpose, she prepares some spices such as garlic, shallots, white pepper, and red chili peppers and than grind them with mortar and pestle. She also prepares several eggs, two stalks of green onions, a chopped carrot and two cups of shredded chicken. A bottle of sweet soy sauce and a bottle of tomato sauce are also ready near the stove. After the steamed rice is cooked, she begins to make the fried rice. In a pan, she mixes all of those ingredients she has prepared with the warm steam rice. Although it took one hour and a half to prepare it but the result is attractive and delicious warm fried rice. It has the light brown color of soy sauce, mixed with tomato sauce. There is also the white and yellow of eggs; the green of the green onion, and the light orange of the carrot. I imagined that in the morning like this, I would eat warm fried rice and drink a cup of hot milk or hot chocolate. Yes, it is a big meal, but that's how we Indonesians have breakfast.

Noises of bowls and spoons brought my mind back to Bill's family dining room and cut my dream. They were done. Lisa took out some bread, a bottle of mayonnaise, a head of lettuce and some slices of smoked beef from the fridge. She made some sandwiches for our lunch. Bill and I were helping her by spreading some mayonnaise on the bread while Lisa cut the lettuce. Two loaf of bread with mayonnaise on it, lettuce and two slices of smoke beef in between. Sandwiches were ready. It only takes ten minutes.

I was amaze that it was not so long for her to prepare dinner for us. She washed potatoes, carrots and meat, then put them on crock-pot, added with some salt and pepper, and turned switch on. That was on position of slow cooking. When we were back home in the evening, the dinner would be ready to serve: hot and tender.

At that time all Bill's family was ready to go to swim in a hot spring located about 30 miles from their house and then we would do some hiking up to a mountain nearby. The kids, especially the boys, James and Gabriel were so enthusiastic to go. As soon as they were done eating their breakfast, they grabbed the backpacks that they had prepared on the previous day. They waited for us in the car.

On the way to the hot spring, I said to Bill, who was driving.

"It was so fast preparing American meals!"

"Yeah, that's the way we do it. We don't want to waste our time cooking. How about Indonesian meals?" He asked me.

"It's different. We have three big meals a day and it takes a lot of time to serve them. The main dishes are steam rice and it is served with vegetables and meat or fish. My mom and our housemaid are always busy in the kitchen." I answered.

"We Americans, only eat a heavy meal for dinner. We just grab anything we found on the fridge for breakfast and lunch." Lisa added.

I remembered that my mom always prepares a variety of food for lunch, not a light lunch, but the heavy one. Sometimes she prepares hot vegetable soup with fried chicken and sambal, a kind of chili sauce that is hot and spicy and in the afternoon she makes rendang, hot and spicy beef in thick coconut milk and boiled vegetables for dinner. The meal is always tasty, spicy and is served hot.

Javanese says that every farm has its own grasshopper, and every pond has its own fish. There is uniqueness in every place and all together show diversity, which mean richness. How wonderful the world is. [HN]

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