Cruelty, karma and cuisine go hand in hand for dogs in Bali. Dogs are disliked, disrespected and eaten in Bali because of a “primitive belief ” that is still in wide circulation: if a human being is bad (a thief, for example), he will come back in his next lifetime as a dog (the dog “made a mistake” as a human). It is considered a terrible reincarnation to be reborn as a dog (they are evil souls): the buta kalas (negative or evil spirits or demons) are believed to be embodied in the local dogs. To make this a self-fulfilling prophecy, Balinese men customarily rub very hot red chilies onto the gums of young puppies from birth to make them angry and train them to be aggressive. Dogs are also very common targets of personal revenge. If your neighbor does not like you, or he thinks you are doing black magic against him, or your dog is noisy, he will poison your dog. He tosses poisoned bakso meat balls into your house yard, which the dog eats and dies. In deep contrast, the Balinese do not kill, cook or eat cucing (cat). If they accidentally run over a cat on the road, they will stop and make a ceremony for the cat. If they hit a cat and there is no ceremony, it will bring bad luck.
Fortunately, the Balinese usually sustain themselves with other food besides dogs. They also feast on ample amounts of steamed white rice, stir-fried leaves and greens (kangkung) and long green beans (kacang panjang), small portions of fish such as teri (anchovy) or pindang (sardines), chicken simmered with spices, tofu (tahu), tempe, edible tubers like ubi (sweet potato) and keladi (taro or calladium), krupuk (crackers), peanuts, super-hot chili sambal and jaja (sweet, sticky rice cakes). Personal nourishment habits follow each generation of Balinese into the afterlife. Many individuals are temporarily buried in the cemetery shortly after death to await an auspicious day and sufficient family funds, sometimes for years, for a mass cremation ceremony. Relatives visit the deceased remains regularly and bring offerings for the grave composed of all his favorite foods as well as mandatory rice, coffee, tea and fruit, enabling his spirit to enjoy a tailored, butler service feast.
The living, however, eat all of their meals by themselves, quickly, privately, alone and undisturbed. Family members carry their food-laden banana leaf “plate” to a corner, turn their back to the others and eat in happy silence. They choose a quiet spot near the kitchen or gravitate towards an unoccupied open-air pavilion in their compound to either stand, balance on a plastic stool, perch on a large green coconut, sit on the floor or squat over the ground. Family dining is not a social custom in Bali. It is not traditional for household members to sit down to eat, talk and socialize over food. Meals are only shared during cooperative ritual food preparation activities, on special festive occasions and at ceremonies. This is partly a result of the way the Balinese prepare their food. Armed with a traditional Asian complement of leaves, roots, herbs and spices, the wife cooks only once a day, in the early morning, and leaves all of the food on the table under upturned bowls or netted covers. Family members help themselves as they please during the day whenever they are hungry. Rice was traditionally eaten cold but modern rice cookers now keep the rice hot and moist during the day. The Balinese also prefer to eat in silence because they believe that talking will kill the spirit of the food. Meals that are prepared by hand are eaten by hand. The children of the gods eat with the fingers of their right hand as the left is used for ablutions and is considered impure. A food-laden banana leaf square or an increasingly popular plastic or ceramic bowl is held in the palm of the left hand. The characteristically small, cut-up pieces of food, portion of white rice and sauce are scooped up with all five fingers together of the right hand. Spoons are only used to service messy dishes. Large banana leaves (daun pisang) are Bali’s natural chinaware. Sourced from a backyard tree or bought at the village market in long rolled-up pieces, they are used once then donated to the pigs for food.
Ceremonial food functions as social currency, social lubrication and social cement on Bali. It is part of the constant give and take of Balinese community life. Village members frequently assemble at the banjar or at the house of a professional offerings worker to make ritual foods and coconut leaf offerings for mass cremations and other family or temple ceremonies. Meals and snacks must be served to sustain and thank them for their work during these preparatory activities which can extend for weeks or months on end, always provided by the village association or the host family. This is the real Balinese food born and bred in ancient ancestral compound and village temple culture—hidden, manufactured and consumed behind high, invisible family compound walls. Workers feast communally on a home-cooked spicy, generous groaning board of steamed rice, fragrant tofu dishes, jackfruit curry, soups, leafy cooked vegetables, marinated tiny fish and throat-stopping sambal. Balinese cuisine thrives on the yin–yang contrast between such ordinary compound food and auspicious temple food. With ongoing economic growth, however, traditional festival foods are increasingly crossing over onto everyday menus.
During family celebrations such as ground touching, tooth filing or wedding ceremonies, women from the local banjar arrive in steady streams at the family compound bearing gifts of essential basic commodities, such as sugar, rice, coffee and bananas. Sugar, coffee and rice (“the traditional gift”) are proffered on all special ceremonial occasions, whether visiting the family of someone who has just died or compensating the balian (traditional healer) for medical-spiritual treatments. Coffee, sweet tea and fresh jaja rice cakes must be made or bought and served to these visiting guests. Before they leave, the family also fills their empty keben with sacred satay sticks, steamed rice and lawar as a parting dowry. Friends and neighbors thank each other with the critical food items of life. The custom on Bali is to bring a gift and return home with a value-added reciprocal assortment of ceremonial haute cuisine.
Bubur Kacang Hijau (Ijo)
(GREEN PEA PORRIDGE)
Although the Balinese make bubur kacang hijau as a common family food, it is considered an expensive dish. The cost of a one pound bag of tiny green peas (Kacang Hijau Finna) for this recipe was Rp.19,723, prohibitive for most Balinese, more so since kacang hijau grows in Bali and is actually a small type of local peanut. Half a coconut cost Rp.2,300, a tube of Balinese palm sugar Rp.5,440 and five bananas from a roadside warung stall (Rp.5,000). The Balinese will make bubur kacang hijau for family members when they come home for Galungan. Bubur kacang hijau is not really a ceremonial food but is cooked for birthdays, anniversaries, to celebrate something or on special occasions for the family. We enjoyed a “special edition”: people also cook and eat it as a snack.
Recipe courtesy of the beautiful young Miss Era. Miss Era created absolute food magic out of one battered, burnt aluminum pot and a small petrol-fueled kompor stove. The joy of cooking began at 3.20 p.m. one hot rainy afternoon at Era’s house in Seririt, northern Bali, May 2011. Era’s sister Sri had to go out on a motorbike and purchase more lengis (petrol) to fire up the small kompor stove for our porridge boiling party. Era first learned to cook by watching her mother prepare food at home as she was growing up in their small, traditional rural village (Tirtasari) near Lovina in northern Bali. She is a natural-born cook and does everything by instinct, personal taste and family experience. Era cooks with love, laughter and kindness, which makes the food doubly sweet, doubly nourishing and doubly appreciated by everyone round her. Address: Kadek Era (Kadek Debisugianto), Desa Patemon, Dusun Kawan, Kecamatan Seririt, Kabupaten, Buleleng Propensi, Bali.
½ coconut
1 lb (500 g) green peas (kacang hijau)
2 pandanus leaves
2 tubes (1½ lb/640 g) brown palm sugar (gula merah bulat)
2 pieces fresh ginger each 1¼ inches (3 cm)
1 tbs sea salt
Cut the coconut into sections, and scrape the brown skin off.
Boil the water (4 x 3 ½ -inch-tall glasses).
Pour three glasses of water into a bowl to clean half of the green peas. Pour