Isn’t Indonesian food similar to Indian food, with lots of spices and stuff?
We feel that there isn’t a single answer to this question, as there are so many types of Indonesian food. But generally, Indonesian food is spicy and served with white rice. Some Indonesians feel like they haven’t really had a fulfilling meal if they don’t eat rice.
The most well-known Indonesian cuisine is perhaps Masakan Padang, which translates to “Padang food” in English. Masakan Padang is the traditional food of West Sumatra, and it is in fact named after the province’s capital city, Padang. It consists of several types of meat and vegetables involving lots of spices and coconut milk. Some favorites include the infamous beef rendang, which refers to curried beef slowly cooked in coconut milk and ground spices–it takes more than 8 hours to cook! (Fun fact: it is named by CNN Travel as the world’s best food), curried cow brain and beef tendon, as well as ayam pop (fried chicken seasoned with various spices, such as ginger, galangal, and lime leaves). Another interesting thing about Padang food isthe way it is served! If you go to a Padang restaurant, you will be served with at least ten plates of various dishes half stacked on top of each other. You can pick whatever you want, then you pay for what you eat.
All said and done, if we were to describe Indonesia in one phrase, it would be…
Bhinneka tunggal ika. It means unity in diversity. Indonesia really is a very diverse country—in terms of ethnicity, culture, languages as well as landscape—and we often find ourselves scratching our heads trying to generalize all 250 million of us. A person from Padang will speak a different language, eat different types of food, and dress differently compared to a person from Ambon.