chickens and piglets.
Eager to finish shopping before 7 a.m., Balinese women go early when trading is most brisk (the markets sell out of goods and die down by 10 a.m.) to interact with friends, neighbors and regular sellers as they bargain for the day’s household necessities. A woman’s family will wake up to the comforting, familiar kitchen smells of rice steaming in the dangdang pot, smoke from the wood stove fire and chilies frying in oil. Aromatic fresh spices, roasted first in some village households, must also be ground every morning in a mortar and pestle to make a fresh spice paste. The traditional skill and knowledge of how to wield the batu base (cobek) is carefully passed down from mother to daughter. Indeed, in the past a prospective daughter-in-law’s worth was based on her ability to use the mortar and pestle. The wife cooks and completes the entire day’s food supply of rice and other dishes and leaves them on a table or inside a cupboard, covered with banana leaf squares, for family members to eat cold whenever they get hungry. There are no set meal times.
Banana leaf squares and wrappers are a necessary part of Balinese kitchen equipment. Like all Southeast Asians, the Balinese have developed sophisticated techniques of utilizing leaves to wrap a host of traditional dishes. Different leaves impart different flavors and aromas to food, and specific leaves are specially pre-prepared before they are used. There are many classic techniques of wrapping food with leaves to produce delicious and artistic edible treasures. The daily food may also be placed in a special basket called a kerenjang gantung, which is suspended from the ceiling of the kitchen. A kereneng is a bag or pouch made of pandanus leaves or a charcoal basket made of bamboo wicker-work, and a keranjang is a rough basket. Gantung means to hang or suspend, and antung-antung is a hanging suspended holder for a kris or for kitchen utensils. In modern Denpasar kitchens, food is placed on the kitchen table covered by a pretty pink or red plastic net basket called a tutup makan (food cover).
Young bamboo nodes and tubes as well as empty coconut shells are also used as food molds, storage vessels and food packaging. They also serve as containers for cooking food over fires and grills. The bungbung is a cylindrical tube made from cut bamboo, and is used to cook fish, chicken or pork, in fact any meat-based dish. Only young bamboo is used as old bamboo is too dry and can catch fire. Meat cooked in a bungbung has a unique taste and smell as it absorbs the scent of the bamboo. A complement of spices is added to the meat, put in one end of the tube with a little water so it will boil and the bungbung is closed with a leaf to keep the water inside. The size of the bamboo tube depends on the amount of meat being cooked. Usually, one segment of bamboo, 30 to 45 cm in length, is used. If there is a lot of meat, two segments may be used. A small fire is built and the bamboo tube placed on the ground, leaf-covered end upward, leaning on a slant against the wooden frame placed above the fire. The bungbung cannot be put directly in the fire because it will burn. As the meat cooks, it becomes “melting soft” because the water inside cannot escape. This is ancient pressure-cooking, Balinese village style! The cooking time depends on the fire. If the fire is good, one hour is enough, though typical cooking time using a bungbung is one to two hours. The Balinese will only do this for special occasions like Galungan or Kuningan when they have a lot of meat. The bungbung is not used for daily cooking as people are too busy and the method is complicated.
Nasi (steamed rice) campur (mixture) is the basic thrice daily meal on Bali. The Balinese eat the same food for each meal as the wife only cooks once a day. Food also varies very little from one day to the next. Bali’s ubiquitous plate of steamed white rice is inseparable from its cuisine. Bali’s rice-based culinary culture requires that fresh rice be cooked every single morning. Rice left overnight is deemed to be fit only as animal food. The women cook both ceremonial and ordinary household food with great care, at a low cooking heat, with attention to detail and inner joy. This reflects their essentially reverential culture: they always cook everything as if they are making offerings for the temple and for the gods. Cooking and culture are inseparably bound together on Bali; food preparation is intricately tied to Balinese religious beliefs and traditional village life. Cockfighting, marriage rituals, creation ceremonies and tooth filings are never far from the chef ’s mind in the Balinese kitchen. The spectacular pageantry of edible temple offerings takes birth in even the simplest of rural Balinese kitchens.
The Balinese show their respect and gratitude for this god-given abundance by sharing their food with and honoring the household spirits. After the morning pot of rice is cooked, symbolic portions of the newly prepared food are first presented to the pantheon of gods, the deified ancestors, and both the good and evil spirits before being consumed by the family. A few grains of rice and salt and tiny pieces of food are placed on a small banana leaf square called a joten or saiban, and are offered daily to the invisible forces of the cosmos before people are allowed to eat. The saiban are put at the portal entry in front.
My great friend in Bali, Kasena, told me that “joten (Balinese) is an offering made to the ancestors’ spirits. After you cook the day’s food, you then offer what you cook—you share to the ancestors before you eat it. Joten (a banten, or gift to the gods) are put in many places, like the water jar. After you make these offerings, only then you can eat what you cook.” Called nitya (daily) yajna (holy sacrifice), this personal path of worship is always carried out at home. The preparation of saiban offerings and regular worship keep the Balinese god-conscious and their home holy. Saiban, or naivaidya, is performed every day without exception after cooking in the morning. It represents the daily gratitude of the Balinese for the given endowment, and is presented to the Creator before any food is consumed.
Depending on the size of the household, Balinese women prepare a tray full of 30–70 modest daily offerings called banten (or yadnya) saiban, banten nasi or banten sesajen. Two basic types of folded banten banana leaf offering baskets are used in this god-fearing, god-pleasing interval between cooking the food and eating it. Tangkih is a one-inch-wide, two-inch-long strip of banana leaf (daun pisang) folded over in the center to resemble a bow or a military medal, held together with a semat, a tiny, sharp, bamboo stick toothpick. The other similarly sized banana leaf model, celemik, appears as a round, three-sided, triangular mini-basket. There are also tiny, flat, one-inch-square banana leaf pieces containing a few freshly steamed grains of rice alone, or rice partnered with flowers, a tiny amount of the recently cooked food, and perhaps coffee. The Balinese also weave small, square, green coconut or banana leaf offering trays (ngedjot) holding a few grains of rice, a flower, salt and chili pepper, which they set on the ground to placate the evil spirits and negative forces that live there and haunt the house. If the Balinese drink tea, coffee or rice wine, they will also spill a little on the ground as an offering. These offerings (called sajeng or sajen) are set out to appease the bad spirits (sajeng comes from the word ajengan, which means food or rice). Sajeng offerings are prepared and arak or brem is also spilled on the ground.
The Balinese distribute these diverse, duality-driven domestic offerings to various supernaturally charged household shrines along with a prayer directed heavenwards. They place the offerings at particular locations determined by the priest: on the ground by the entrance gate, in the altar in the middle of the courtyard, in front of all the buildings in the compound, at the family temple, on the family shrines, in the backyard garden, in the sleeping quarters, at the source of water, and in the kitchen on both cooking ranges, the firewood rack, the mortar and pestle, the pan or bowl where the rice is kept (dedicated to the rice goddess Dewi Sri, who has blessed the food with prosperity), the pump, the well, the cover of the water jar, the cleaning broom, and in the special devotional kitchen areas.
The kitchen always has two small shrines or alters called sanggah. The one hanging on the wall is called a sanggah paon (kitchen) for Lord Brahma, the god of creation and the fire used to cook the rice, represented in the fireplace and oven. The shrine by the well is called a sang-gah sukan (holy water or spring water) for Lord Wisnu, the god of preservation and the water resident in a large water jar placed beside the oven. Food and rice are transformed into edible forms by fire and water (the five basic elements are air, fire, water, earth and ether) through the cooking process. The gods must be thanked. Only after this daily round of religious activities ends is the family allowed to savor breakfast and rejoice in the gift of food.
In
