How Indonesia Catches the Chili Culture
Posted On 19 Feb 2018
By : Aldrin Rocky Sampeliling
Chili has a special place in most Indonesians’ hearts. Here is a story between Indonesians and their love for chili.
Chili arrived at the archipelago at the beginning of the 16th century. (Photo source: Pixabay/TheDigitalArtist)
Jakarta, GIVnews.com – People and their craving is cyclic, they want this today and they want that on another day. The cycle will perhaps spin more quickly for fashion than for hobby or food. For food, they stay longer, much more longer than what you think it would be – or if not, persist.
In Indonesia there is a flavor of food – or rather, sensation – that came hundreds of years ago and still remained here in many Indonesians’ hearts: the spicy sensation.
Chilies in Indonesia, unlike black peppers and gingers, are more likely to be in your grip with its raw form. And that perchance what makes it feel more intimate. The chili commonly takes the form of an elongated red or green color of fruit with its size usually no longer than, and not as wide as your little finger. Here in this country you could see assorted fritter (gorengan) street vendors subconsciously put raw chilies along with the fritters into their customers’ paper bags. Indonesian will bite the raw chili first, then the fritter, then the chili again, and repeated until it ends. In some small, neighborhood restaurants, they will also put bowls of chilies on the tables, just in case you will need it to complement the fritters or to spice up your noodle. Chilies can also be served intact in the form of a bottled pickle, which is mixed together with water, vinegar, salt, sugar, as well as diced carrots, shallots, and cucumbers—this condiment normally works for noodle or fried rice.
When chilies are not served in its natural, fruit form, it will likely be served as sambal, a kind of hot sauce made of chilies (raw, fried, or grilled) together with water and salt at its bare minimum – similar to Mexican’s salsa. Generally people will add tomatoes, white peppers, and other ingredients as additional spices. The ingredients will be grounded in a stone mortar or mixed altogether in a blender. It will then be served as spicy condiment for meal, to be stirred with the main ingredients during cooking, or as the base for food sauce. This homemade sauce is so important some successful Indonesians, typically those who made it through hardships, would hark back and say, “I used to only eat rice and sambal,” or for some people, “It’s okay, I can still bear with as long as you provide the rice with sambal.” (Well, some Indonesians may substitute it with Indomie today – practicality-wise, Indomie has the essences of rice and sambal.)
Apart from the homemade sauce, Indonesians also enjoy the bottled hot sauce. Since it can last for long, they will usually take it with them when go abroad. They said the bottled hot sauce with its local ingredients would help allay their craving for home food. The bottled hot sauce basically contains many spices, but when asked about the main ingredient, a high chance that they will mention ‘chili’ first. Chilies, so close to them, have become the insignia of spicy-ness in Indonesia.
Chili and the archipelago
There are three spices that Indonesians regularly use to make their food spicy, namely black peppers, gingers and chilies. But spicy sensation is not native to Indonesia. Black peppers were brought by Indian traders circa 600 BC. The gingers came sometime near (before or after) that period, which were brought by either Chinese or Indian traders.
The newest among them is chili of the ‘New World’. It took more than a millennium for it to come to the archipelago (i.e. Indonesia). First the native Central and South Americans grew them, then the Europeans came and shipped them to the ‘Old World’. The Italian explorer Christopher Columbus and his crew were the ones predicted to fetch the spice. He brought it to Spain, but it’s the Spanish’s erstwhile nemesis – the Portuguese – that made it worldwide.
Chili arrived at the archipelago at the beginning of the 16th century, when spices were at the epicenter of world economy. Some books say chilies were brought by Ferdinand Magellan, a Portuguese explorer, on his westward journey from Spain – through South America and across the Pacific Ocean – to the Spice Islands (now Indonesia’s Moluccas), but it was also possible that it was brought earlier by another Portuguese through their eastward journey from Europe and via the Indian Ocean; or some slim chances that it’s actually the Chinese or Indian traders, who initially had traded with the Europeans somewhere before arriving at the archipelago, that brought them.
There are many speculations, but one for sure, Magellan had never actually made it to the Spice Islands, as he was shot dead with a poison arrow when involved in skirmishes between local groups in the Philippines. Only his crew that managed to get there.
It’s pretty hard to imagine how the pre-600-BC Indonesians survived it without the spicy sensation. How then did they adapt to the spicy black pepper and ginger? Was it because they already had the native galangal (laos/lengkuas) with its somewhat sharp taste? Leave that alone; the forthcoming 16th century at least provided an ample explanation on why the early Indonesians were willing to embrace chilies: if the spicy ginger and black pepper were still embraced after a millennium of arrival, then why not for chilies? The Africans were quick to adopt chilies because they already had their own native, ginger-like spice to begin with (the so-called grains of paradise), and so that probably applied to Indonesians too. In a high probability, chilies may even fare it better today than black peppers and gingers in term of its closeness with Indonesian people.
Chilies in Indonesia, unlike black peppers and gingers, are more likely to be in your grip with its raw form. (Photo source: Pixabay/balogalukas)
Chili culture
Today, chilies are in every nook and cranny of Indonesian food culture. Some restaurants have made chilies as part of their logos or the main feature of their dishes – usually by declaring themselves as sambal specialists that offer many types of sambal. This type of restaurant will typically succeed in inviting many consumers. Moreover, chilies have become the symbol in many restaurant menus to indicate the food’s level of spiciness. The bottled hot sauces are also there in every restaurant table. The exposure is real, and this may help reproduce Indonesian’s intimacy with chilies, so intimate a little disruption in its price will become an important issue to be discussed on the news headlines – which in itself is another way to reproduce the intimacy.
Despite not being the only ingredient, chilies have been commonly paralleled with sambal or spicy food. I once attended a small discussion held by a community of youth named Cerita Aja!. We were discussing the prospects of Indonesian cuisines to go international, during which I brought up the chili topic. I asked the participants about whether they like chili or not. All but two of them liked it. The reasons were varied. A girl said, “If your food is bland, use sambal.” Another said that her tongue was used to it since childhood, and some others contended that it’s good to increase appetite as well as to reduce stress.
In a way, you could say that the chili has a special place in most Indonesians’ hearts. Chilies might not be native to Indonesia, but the kicking sensation it gives has paved its own way to naturalization: chilies have become part of Indonesian identity. The market and the media know what the people want, thus reinforcing what initially had been a predilection.
http://www.globalindonesianvoices.com/32204/how-indonesia-catches-the-chili-culture/
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