Indonesia Food Quotes

A scientist who studied monkeys on an island in Indonesia was able to teach a certain one to wash bananas in the river before eating them. Cleansed of sand and dirt, the food was more flavorful. The scientist who did this only because he was studying the learning capacity of monkeys did not imagine what would eventually happen. So he was surprised to see that the other monkeys on the island began to imitate the first one. "And then, one day, when a certain number of monkeys had learned to wash their bananas, the monkeys on all of the other islands in the archipelago began to do the same thing. What was most surprising, though, was that the other monkeys learned to do so without having had any contact with the island where the experiment had been conducted." He stopped. "Do you understand?" "No," I answered. "There are several similar scientific studies. The most common explanation is that when a certain number of people evolve, the entire human race begins to evolve. We don't know how many people are needed but we know that's how it works.

On the island of Java, in Indonesia, lived Homo soloensis, ‘Man from the Solo Valley’, who was suited to life in the tropics. On another Indonesian island – the small island of Flores – archaic humans underwent a process of dwarfing. Humans first reached Flores when the sea level was exceptionally low, and the island was easily accessible from the mainland. When the seas rose again, some people were trapped on the island, which was poor in resources. Big people, who need a lot of food, died first. Smaller fellows survived much better. Over the generations, the people of Flores became dwarves. This unique species, known by scientists as Homo floresiensis, reached a maximum height of only 3.5 feet and weighed no more than fifty-five pounds. They were nevertheless able to produce stone tools, and even managed occasionally to hunt down some of the island’s elephants – though, to be fair, the elephants were a dwarf species as well.

But we know that whatever it was, Washington did not stop helping to carry out Operation Annihilation. The US economic elite heard a very different message. Indonesia was open for business. In 1967, the first year of Suharto’s fully consolidated rule, General Electric, American Express, Caterpillar, and Goodyear Tire all came to explore the new opportunities available to them in Indonesia. Star-Kist foods arrived to see about fishing in Indonesian waters, and of course, defense contractors Raytheon and Lockheed popped over, too.

The broth... it's made with a mix of soy milk and charred miso. But how could you get a flavor this robust with just those?" "I mixed in grated ebi taro root. It's a strongly flavored tuber that mashes easily into a smooth, thick paste. Adding that to the broth gave it a creamy texture and a richer flavor." "Weird. All of a sudden I'm starting to feel warm." "That's the chili oil and grated raw garlic and ginger taking effect. The soy milk took the edge off of the spicy bite... so now it just gently warms the body without burning the tongue." "The rest of the ingredients are also a parade of detailed work. Thin slices of lotus root and burdock deep-fried to a crispy golden brown. Chunky strips of carrot and turnip grilled over an open flame until lightly charred and then seasoned with just a little rock salt to bring out their natural sweetness. Like a French buffet, each side ingredient is cooked in exactly the best way to bring out its full flavor! But the keystone to it all... ... is the TEMPEH!" TEMPEH Originating in Indonesia, tempeh is made of soybeans fermented into a cake form. Soybeans are lightly cooked and then wrapped in either banana or hibiscus leaves. When stored, the naturally occurring bacteria in the leaves causes the soybeans to ferment into tempeh. Traditional food with a history over four hundred years long, tempeh is well-known and often used in Indonesian cuisine. "Mm! Wow! It's really light, yet really filling too! Like fried rice." "It has a texture a lot like that of a burger patty, so vegetarians and people on macrobiotic diets use it a lot as a meat substitute. I broiled these teriyaki style in a mix of soy sauce and sake.

Professor Joseph Stiglitz, former Chief Economist of the World Bank, and former Chairman of President Clinton's Council of Economic Advisers, goes public over the World Bank’s, “Four Step Strategy,” which is designed to enslave nations to the bankers. I summarise this below, 1. Privatisation. This is actually where national leaders are offered 10% commissions to their secret Swiss bank accounts in exchange for them trimming a few billion dollars off the sale price of national assets. Bribery and corruption, pure and simple. 2. Capital Market Liberalization. This is the repealing any laws that taxes money going over its borders. Stiglitz calls this the, “hot money,” cycle. Initially cash comes in from abroad to speculate in real estate and currency, then when the economy in that country starts to look promising, this outside wealth is pulled straight out again, causing the economy to collapse. The nation then requires International Monetary Fund (IMF) help and the IMF provides it under the pretext that they raise interest rates anywhere from 30% to 80%. This happened in Indonesia and Brazil, also in other Asian and Latin American nations. These higher interest rates consequently impoverish a country, demolishing property values, savaging industrial production and draining national treasuries. 3. Market Based Pricing. This is where the prices of food, water and domestic gas are raised which predictably leads to social unrest in the respective nation, now more commonly referred to as, “IMF Riots.” These riots cause the flight of capital and government bankruptcies. This benefits the foreign corporations as the nations remaining assets can be purchased at rock bottom prices. 4. Free Trade. This is where international corporations burst into Asia, Latin America and Africa, whilst at the same time Europe and America barricade their own markets against third world agriculture. They also impose extortionate tariffs which these countries have to pay for branded pharmaceuticals, causing soaring rates in death and disease.

What a joy this book is! I love recipe books, but it’s short-lived; I enjoy the pictures for several minutes, read a few pages, and then my eyes glaze over. They are basically books to be used in the kitchen for one recipe at a time. This book, however, is in a different class altogether and designed to be read in its entirety. It’s in its own sui generis category; it has recipes at the end of most of the twenty-one chapters, but it’s a book to be read from cover to cover, yet it could easily be read chapter by chapter, in any order, as they are all self-contained. Every bite-sized chapter is a flowing narrative from a well-stocked brain encompassing Balinese culture, geography and history, while not losing its main focus: food. As you would expect from a scholar with a PhD in history from Columbia University, the subject matter has been meticulously researched, not from books and articles and other people’s work, but from actually being on the ground and in the markets and in the kitchens of Balinese families, where the Balinese themselves learn their culinary skills, hands on, passed down orally, manually and practically from generation to generation. Vivienne Kruger has lived in Bali long enough to get it right. That’s no mean feat, as the subject has not been fully studied before. Yes, there are so-called Balinese recipe books, most, if I’m not mistaken, written by foreigners, and heavily adapted. The dishes have not, until now, been systematically placed in their proper cultural context, which is extremely important for the Balinese, nor has there been any examination of the numerous varieties of each type of recipe, nor have they been given their true Balinese names. This groundbreaking book is a pleasure to read, not just for its fascinating content, which I learnt a lot from, but for the exuberance, enthusiasm and originality of the language. There’s not a dull sentence in the book. You just can’t wait to read the next phrase. There are eye-opening and jaw-dropping passages for the general reader as Kruger describes delicacies from the village of Tengkudak in Tabanan district — grasshoppers, dragonflies, eels and live baby bees — and explains how they are caught and cooked. She does not shy away from controversial subjects, such as eating dog and turtle. Parts of it are not for the faint-hearted, but other parts make you want to go out and join the participants, such as the Nusa Lembongan fishermen, who sail their outriggers at 5.30 a.m. The author quotes Miguel Covarrubias, the great Mexican observer of the 1930s, who wrote “The Island of Bali.” It has inspired all writers since, including myself and my co-author, Ni Wayan Murni, in our book “Secrets of Bali, Fresh Light on the Morning of the World.” There is, however, no bibliography, which I found strange at first. I can only imagine it’s a reflection of how original the subject matter is; there simply are no other sources. Throughout the book Kruger mentions Balinese and Indonesian words and sometimes discusses their derivations. It’s a Herculean task. I was intrigued to read that “satay” comes from the Tamil word for flesh ( sathai ) and that South Indians brought satay to Southeast Asia before Indonesia developed its own tradition. The book is full of interesting tidbits like this. The book contains 47 recipes in all, 11 of which came from Murni’s own restaurant, Murni’s Warung, in Ubud. Mr Dolphin of Warung Dolphin in Lovina also contributed a number of recipes. Kruger adds an introduction to each recipe, with a detailed and usually very personal commentary. I think my favorite, though, is from a village priest (pemangku), I Made Arnila of the Ganesha (Siwa) Temple in Lovina. water. I am sure most will enjoy this book enormously; I certainly did.” Review published in The Jakarta Globe, April 17, 2014. Jonathan Copeland is an author and photographer based in Bali. thejakartaglobe/features/spiritual-journey-culinary-world-bali

The Nobel Prize–winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, who was the chief economist of the World Bank at the time, called the food riots in Indonesia “the IMF Riots.” “When a nation is down and out,” Stiglitz told the London newspaper the Observer, “the IMF takes advantage and squeezes the last pound of blood out of them. They turn up the heat until finally the whole cauldron blows

FOOD FOR THOUGHT: Once upon a time our politicians did not tend to apologize for our country’s prior actions! Here’s a refresher on how some of our former patriots handled negative comments about our great country. These are quite good JFK’S Secretary of State, Dean Rusk, was in France in the early 60’s when De Gaulle decided to pull out of NATO. De Gaulle said he wanted all US military out of France as soon as possible. Rusk’s response: “Does that include those who are buried here?” De Gaulle did not respond. You could have heard a pin drop. When in England, at a fairly large conference, Colin Powell was asked by the Archbishop of Canterbury if our plans for Iraq were just an example of ‘empire building’ by George Bush. He answered by saying, “Over the years, the United States has sent many of its fine young men and women into great peril to fight for freedom beyond our borders. The only amount of land we have ever asked for in return is enough to bury those that did not return.” You could have heard a pin drop. There was a conference in France where a number of international engineers were taking part, including French and American. During a break, one of the French engineers came back into the room saying, “Have you heard the latest dumb stunt Bush has done? He has sent an aircraft carrier to Indonesia to help the tsunami victims. What does he intend to do, bomb them?” A Boeing engineer stood up and replied quietly: “Our carriers have three hospitals on board that can treat several hundred people; they are nuclear powered and can supply emergency electrical power to shore facilities; they have three cafeterias with the capacity to feed 3,000 people three meals a day, they can produce several thousand gallons of fresh water from sea water each day, and they carry half a dozen helicopters for use in transporting victims and injured to and from their flight deck. We have eleven such ships; how many does France have?” You could have heard a pin drop. A U.S. Navy Admiral was attending a naval conference that included Admirals from the U.S., English, Canadian, Germany and France. At morning tea the Frenchman complained that the conference should be conducted in French since it was being held in Paris. The German replied that, so far as he could see, the reason that it was being held in English was as a mark of respect to the other attendees, since their troops had shed so much blood so that the Frenchman wouldn’t be speaking German.

Closer to home, the Netherlands’ colonial history was evident on the country’s dining tables and restaurant menus, with Indonesian cuisine offering a rare bright spot among otherwise dire food options. It was common for family celebrations or corporate events to involve a rijsttafel (‘rice table’), a lavish banquet consisting of dozens of gelatinous Indonesian dishes displayed on a vast table. Just as no British town could be complete without an Indian curry house, most Dutch towns had at least one restaurant offering peanut soup, chicken satay and spicy noodles. Nasi goreng (fried rice) and bami goreng (fried noodles) were as well known to Dutch diners as chicken masala and naan bread were to the British. After centuries of trade with Indonesia, the Dutch had developed an abiding obsession with coffee, with an expensive coffee machine an essential feature of even the scruffiest student house. Surinamese food, which I’d never even heard of before moving to the Netherlands, was also popular. The Dutch had left their mark on the world, and the world had returned the favour.

So, what are we cooking for your mom?" "One of her favorite dishes---nasi campur, a traditional dish from Jakarta, where my father was born." He pauses, flashes a wicked grin. "You'll love it." "What if I don't?" "Then there's something wrong with your taste buds." He grins again. "I assure you that you'll be licking your plate." After giving me a sexy smirk, he unpacks the crate, unloading spices and ingredients, and says, "Nasi campur is one of Indonesia's national dishes---very traditional. The name means 'mixed rice,' and it's typically served with a variety of local dishes, such as chicken satay, beef rendang, prawn crackers.

Use food and drink to blur an unpleasant message. Aini told me, “If I have to provide criticism to someone on my staff, I am not going to call them into my office. If I do, I know that they are going to be listening to my message with all of their senses—and any message I provide will be greatly amplified in their minds. Instead, I might invite them out to lunch. Once we are relaxed, this is a good time to give feedback. We don’t make reference to it in the office the next day or the next week, but the feedback has been passed and the receiver is now able to take action without humiliation or breaking the harmony between the two parties. In Japan, Thailand, Korea, China, or Indonesia, the same strategy applies.

A guy once asked me to go with him to Indonesia to help people after the latest tsunami hit. I said yes. I had no idea what I was doing. We arrived in Banda Aceh two weeks after the destruction. (Indonesia alone lost a mind-bending two hundred thousand lives.) We weren’t welcomed by everyone. Most people love the help, sure. But I felt unwelcome when a group of Muslim separatists threatened to kill us. (I have a sixth sense about this kind of thing.) They were opposed to Western interference in Aceh and didn’t want us saying anything about Jesus. I just wanted to help some people. I also wanted a hotel. I wanted a safer place. I didn’t want to die. I had no idea what I was getting into. We took supplies to what was, before the tsunami, a fishing village. It was now a group of people living on the ground, some in tents. I just followed what the rest of our little group was doing. They had more experience. We distributed the food, housewares, cooking oil, that sort of thing, and stayed on the ground with them. That’s how our little disaster-response group operated, even though I wanted a hotel. They stayed among the victims and lived with them. After the militant group threatened to slit our throats, I felt kind of vulnerable out there, lying on the ground. As a dad with two little kids, I didn’t sign up for the martyr thing. I took the threat seriously and wanted to leave. The local imam resisted our presence, too, and this bugged me. “Well, if you hate us, maybe we should leave. It’s a thousand degrees, we’ve got no AC or running water or electricity, and your co-religionists are threatening us. So, yeah. Maybe let’s call it off.” But it wasn’t up to me, and I didn’t have a flight back. As we helped distribute supplies to nearby villages, people repeatedly asked the same question: “Why are you here?” They simply couldn’t understand why we would be there with them. They told us they thought we were enemies. One of the members of our group spent time working in a truck with locals, driving slowly through the devastation, in the sticky humidity, picking up the bodies of their neighbors. They piled them in the back of a truck. It was horrific work. They wore masks, of course, but there’s no covering the smell of death. The locals paused and asked him too: “Why? Why are you here?” He told them it was because he worshiped Jesus, and he was convinced that Jesus would be right there, in the back of the truck with them. He loves them. “But you are our enemy.” “Jesus told us to love our enemies.” The imam eventually warmed up to us, and before we left, he even invited our little group to his home for dinner! We sat in his home, one of the few in the area still standing. He explained through an interpreter that he didn’t trust us at first, because we were Christians. But while other “aid” groups would drive by, throw a box out of a car, and get their pictures taken with the people of his village, our group was different. We slept on the ground. He knew we’d been threatened, he knew we weren’t comfortable, and he knew we didn’t have to be there. But there we were, his supposed enemies, and we would not be offended. We would not be alienated. We were on the ground with his people. His wives peered in from the kitchen, in tears. He passed around a trophy with the photo of a twelve-year-old boy, one of his children. He told us the boy had been lost in the tsunami, and could we please continue to search for him? Was there anything we could do? We were crying too.

Foreword Reviews Magazine. Foreword Reviews. Summer 2014 issue. "By way of introduction to Vivienne Kruger’s Balinese Food, bear in mind that eight degrees south of the equator, this modest-sized lava rich, emerald green island rests among the 17,508 remote, culturally distinct constellation of Indonesian islands. It is home to three million mortals who believe they are protected by an unfathomable number of Bali-Hindu goddesses and gods that inhabit the island’s sacred mountain peaks. The Balinese are unlike almost any other island people in that they are suspicious, even distrustful of the sea, believing mischievous spirits and negative powers dwell there—the underworld, as it were. Yes, they eat seafood, they just mostly let other Indonesians do the fetching. Fittingly, Kruger’s masterful use of language; dogged, on the ground conversations with thousands of Balinese cooks and farmers; and disarming humanity leads to a culinary-minded compendium unlike almost any other. Bali, you got the scribe you deserved. What made Kruger’s work even more impressive is the fact that almost nothing about Balinese food history has been written down over the years. She writes: “Like so many other traditions in Bali, cooking techniques and eating habits are passed down verbally by elders to their children and grandchildren who help in the kitchen. However, Indonesia has an old orally transmitted food culture because the pleasure of storytelling is entwined with the pleasure and effort of cooking and eating.” Balinese Food is framed around twenty-one chapters, including the all-important Sacred Ceremonial Cuisine, Traditional Village Foods, the Cult of Rice, Balinese Pig, Balinese Duck, and specialized cooking techniques like saté, banana leaf wrappers, and the use of bumbu, a sacred, powerful dry spice paste mixture. In the chapter Seafood in Bali, she lists a popular, fragrant accompaniment called Sambal Matah—chopped shallots, red chilies, coconut oil, and kaffir lime juice—that is always served raw and fresh, in this case, alongside a simple recipe for grilled tuna. An outstanding achievement in the realm of island cooking and Indonesian history, Balinese Food showcases the Balinese people in the most flattering of ways.

The lionfish comes from the tropical waters around Indonesia. Though beautiful to look at, it is a voracious predator of other fish, and is able to eat as many as 30 in half an hour. Furthermore, one female lionfish can produce over two million eggs per year, which was a particular problem in the Caribbean, where it has no natural predators. The decimation of local species threatened the environment and the economics of Colombia, much of which depends on fishing. It was also destroying the ecology of coral reefs. This was when some colleagues of mine borrowed an idea from Frederick the Great; Ogilvy & Mather in Bogotá decided that the solution was to create a predator for the lionfish – humans. The simplest and most cost-effective way to rid Colombia’s waters of lionfish was to encourage people to eat them, which would encourage anglers to catch them. The agency recruited the top chefs in Colombia and encouraged them to create lionfish recipes for the best restaurants. As they explained, a lionfish is poisonous on the outside but delicious on the inside, so they created an advertising campaign titled ‘Terribly Delicious’. Working with the Colombian Ministry of the Environment, they generated a cultural shift by turning the invader into an everyday food. Lionfish soon appeared in supermarkets. Some 84 per cent of Colombians are Roman Catholic, so they asked the Catholic Church to recommend lionfish to their congregations on Fridays and during Lent. That additional element – recruiting the Catholic Church – was the true piece of alchemy. Today, indigenous fish species are recovering and the lionfish population is in decline.

This table only counts physical health effects due to disruptions that took place in the Illusion of Control phase. It considers both short-run and long-run effects. Each of the claimed effects is based on a published study about that effect. First on the list is the disruption to vaccination programs for measles, diphtheria, cholera, and polio, which were either cancelled or reduced in scope in some 70 countries. That disruption was caused by travel restrictions. Western experts could not travel, and within many poor countries travel and general activity were also halted in the early days of the Illusion of Control phase. This depressive effect on vaccination programs for the poor is expected to lead to large loss of life in the coming years. The poor countries paying this cost are most countries in Africa, the poorer nations in Asia, such as India, Indonesia and Myanmar, and the poorer countries in Latin America. The second listed effect in the table relates to schooling. An estimated 90% of the world’s children have had their schooling disrupted, often for months, which reduces their lifetime opportunities and social development through numerous direct and indirect pathways. The UN children’s organisation, UNICEF, has released several reports on just how bad the consequences of this will be in the coming decades.116 The third element in Joffe’s table refers to reports of economic and social primitivisation in poor countries. Primitivisation, also seen after the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, is just what it sounds like: a regression away from specialisation, trade and economic advancement through markets to more isolated and ‘primitive’ choices, including attempted economic self-sufficiency and higher fertility. Due to diminished labour market prospects, curtailed educational activities and decreased access to reproductive health services, populations in the Illusion of Control phase began reverting to having more children precisely in those countries where there is already huge pressure on resources. The fourth and fifth elements listed in the table reflect the biggest disaster of this period, namely the increase in extreme poverty and expected famines in poor countries. Over the 20 years leading up to 2020, gradual improvements in economic conditions around the world had significantly eased poverty and famines. Now, international organisations are signalling rapid deterioration in both. The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) now expects the world to have approximately an additional 100 million extremely poor people facing starvation as a result of Covid policies. That will translate into civil wars, waves of refugees and huge loss of life. The last two items in Joffe’s table relate to the effect of lower perinatal and infant care and impoverishment. Millions of preventable deaths are now expected due to infections and weakness in new mothers and young infants, and neglect of other health problems like malaria and tuberculosis that affect people in all walks of life. The whole of the poor world has suffered fewer than one million deaths from Covid. The price to be paid in human losses in these countries through hunger and health neglect caused by lockdowns and other restrictions is much, much larger. All in the name of stopping Covid.

In 1815, the gargantuan eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia produced “The Year Without a Summer,” a worldwide disaster that killed crops, prompted widespread starvation and food riots, and brought snow to New England as late as June.

the island of Java, in Indonesia, and at Malabar, in southern India, Polo saw vast quantities of spices – including various kinds of pepper – on their way to the West. It is this incident which seems to have inspired the inventor of the dish which bears Polo’s name. “Duck à la Marco Polo” was first prepared and served at the famous Parisian restaurant La Tour d’Argent – one of the oldest restaurants in the world, facing the river Seine and the Cathedral of Notre Dame.

AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION: More than twenty-five years ago while researching the fourth Saint-Germain book, Path of the Eclipse, I ran across references to the Year of the Yellow Snow, sometimes called the Year of the Dark Sun, in Western reckoning A.D. 535-36, which was characterized by catastrophic drops in temperature, crop failures, and famine throughout Asia and Europe, with disruption of trade and movements of populations resulting from these losses—just the sort of event to set the speculative juices, flowing, but not the object of my research, nor the period with which I was dealing, promising though it appeared. Then, about ten years ago, other researchers did some serious scholarship on those disastrous events and tried to determine the cause of what turned out to be a worldwide famine and, after considering a number of different scenarios from meteor collisions to a mini-ice age—which indeed occurred—at last identified the probable source of the trouble as an eruption of that all-time bad-boy volcano, Krakatoa; this eruption was more overwhelming than many of its others, for, according to records in Indonesia, this eruption broke Sumatra off from Java—Krakatoa is at the hinge position of those two islands—and opened the Sundra Strait to a deep-water sea passage instead of only the shallowest-draft boats, which it had been for centuries. The eruption occurred in late February or early March of A.D. 535, and its explosion was heard all the way to Beijing. It had been heralded by many months of regional instability, earthquakes, and drastic variations in ocean temperatures in and around what was becoming the Sundra Strait, making the shipping lanes more treacherous than they had been in the past. Many ships' captains reported dangerous sailing in and around Indonesia, and over time, merchant ships avoided the region. ¶ In April, following the eruption, the ash from the volcano had spread all around the world, and disaster followed after it, impacting global weather patterns and lowering the average temperatures sufficiently to keep crops from growing in most of Asia and Europe, as well as large portions of Africa and Americas. Although every part of the world was affected, there were regions that bore more of the brunt of the tragedy than others. Many of the nomadic people of the Central Asian Steppes were driven out of their traditional grazing lands when their herds began to die because of lack of food as the grasslands became arid plains, and their struggle to find new pastureland was made much more difficult by the impact of the colder weather; the significant westward migration from Central Asia began as an attempt to find grass for their herds. In China and Tibet, the snow that continued to fall all the way into June and July was yellow due to the high levels of sulfur in the upper atmosphere. Closer to the eruption site, actual flakes of sulfur fell from the sky, burning people, animals, and fields alike and contaminating wells, springs, and rivers; the devastation of the Indonesian Islands was calamitous, with tens of thousands of people killed in tsunamis spawned by the eruption, by gaseous emanations, and by sulfur contamination, records of which still exist in the royal archives of the Srivijava Empire, which comprised most of modern Indonesia. For months afterward, the remains of humans, animals, trees, sea-life, and buildings washed up on the shores of what are now Indonesia, the Malay Peninsula, the Philippines, China, and India.

Thanks so much. I'm really enjoying the book. I've known a lot about Bali over my 37 years of going there ... but I didn't always know WHY those things were that way culturally, so it's been a fun read !!" Danielle Surkatty, Member of the Organizing Committee, Living in Indonesia, A Site for Expatriates. March 2014 "Such a handsome book! Tuttle did a great job on the design, both inside and out. I've only had a chance to skim the contents but look forward to reading it all. Of course, I'm no authority on food, Balinese or otherwise, but I think I'm a good judge of books. Yours is first rate." Cordially, Dr. Alden Vaughan, Professor of American History, Columbia University, New York. March 2014 "Dr. Vivienne Kruger Ph.D has emerged on a growing list of champions of Balinese cuisine with the publication of Balinese Food: The Traditional Cuisine and Food Culture of Bali (Tuttle Publishing, 2014). Vivienne Kruger’s long connection to Bali, her love of Balinese food and academic eye for detail has resulted in a book that breaks new ground in its study of Balinese culture, the Island's delicious food and the accompanying ancient traditional cooking methods." A Taste of Bali. From the Bookshelf - Balinese Food: The Traditional Cuisine and Food Culture of Bali (2/22/2014) Bali Update, Feb. 24, 2014. Edition 912. Bali Discovery "Balinese Food: The Traditional Cuisine & Food Culture of Bali. Just when you thought you knew a lot about Bali, along comes this in-depth look at the cuisine and how it fits into everyday culture. In Balinese Food the author brings to life Bali's time-honored and authentic village cooking traditions. In over 20 detailed chapters, she explores how the islands intricate culinary art is an inextricable part of Bali's Hindu religion, its culture and its community life. This book provides a detailed roadmap for those who wish to make their own exciting exploration of the exotic world of Balinese cooking!" Living in Indonesia. A Site for Expatriates. Recommended Publications.

Prologue One day about seventy-five thousand years ago, humanity almost died. A titanic explosion in Indonesia sent up a colossal blanket of ash, smoke, and debris that covered thousands of miles. The eruption of Toba was so violent that it ranks as the most powerful volcanic event in the last twenty-five million years. It blew an unimaginable 670 cubic miles of dirt into the air. This caused large areas of Malaysia and India to be smothered by volcanic ash up to thirty feet thick. The toxic smoke and dust eventually sailed over Africa, leaving a trail of death and destruction in its wake. Imagine, for a moment, the chaos caused by this cataclysmic event. Our ancestors were terrorized by the searing heat and the clouds of gray ash that darkened the sun. Many were choked and poisoned by the thick soot and dust. Then, temperatures plunged, causing a “volcanic winter.” Vegetation and wildlife died off as far as the eye could see, leaving only a bleak, desolate landscape. People and animals were left to scavenge the devastated terrain for tiny scraps of food, and most humans died of starvation. It looked as if the entire Earth was dying. The few who survived had only one goal: to flee as far as they could from the curtain of death that descended on their world. Stark evidence of this cataclysm may perhaps be found in our blood. Geneticists have noticed the curious fact that any two humans have almost identical DNA. By contrast, any two chimpanzees can have more genetic variation between them than is found in the entire human population. Mathematically, one theory to explain this phenomenon is to assume that, at the time of the explosion, most humans were wiped out, leaving only a handful of us—about two thousand people. Remarkably, this dirty, raggedy band of humans would become the ancestral Adams and Eves who would eventually populate the entire planet. All of us are almost clones of one another, brothers and sisters descended from a tiny, hardy group of humans who could have easily fit inside a modern hotel ballroom. As they trekked across the barren landscape, they had no idea that one day, their descendants would dominate every corner of our planet.