Kue Putu - A Pandan Pancake

A little pandan pancake-type thing, filled with coconut and palm sugar...

... and cooked and available right on the street in Indonesia!

Tebu

Sugar Cane

A tasty, natural snack...

I remember loving to gnaw on this stuff when we were in Montserrat, but hadn't had it for years and years, until one of the sweetest little girls who participated in one of the Kalabia programs brought some to the Education team after the program was finished... what a treat!

Thus I found out that it grows in most of the islands of Raja Ampat, and is often considered a weed!  Now I know to source it out!!!  In fact, I have since read that sugar cane, actually a grass, is thought to have originated in Papua, and spread throughout the world from there.

It’s so addictive!  I love just sitting around, hanging out, chatting, chewing sugar cane… that unique crunch, then squishing all the goodness out of the pulp… mmm… I can't believe that after several years in Raja Ampat, I have just become aware that it grows here!

Hangin' out on the bowsprit, chewing sugar cane, enjoying the stunning scenery in Misool.

... and brought some back to Sorong with me as well!

The people consider it a weed, and other than chew it (and mostly just kids, at that), they don’t use it.

… why they don’t take advantage of it in the villages to produce their own sugar puzzles me beyond belief… I mean, maybe the initial overhead is a little high, but if the community went together to purchase or engineer a crusher/squeezer/juicer, and all used it only for personal use, then it seems to me, they would save a LOT of money on sugar (in a world where money for sugar is very scarce), and make good use of something that is currently a ‘weed’!

Sagu for sale

Sagu, the traditional staple in Papua, was not in short supply in Kabare village, North Waigeo back in the month of September.

I really appreciate the way they package the sagu for sale... all natural wrappers of banana leaves and rattan here!

Giant Pineapples!

Maybe this is not abnormal, but I had never SEEN a pineapple this big before!

It was delicious and sweet too!

Sate Ulat Sago

Sate is basically the Indonesian word for kebab... meat on a stick.  The most common is chicken sate, delicious with a peanut sauce... but you can also get fish and other types of sate, including this one:  Sate Ulat Sago - Sago Palm Larvae!  Yup... Maggots on a stick... Grub Kebabs!

Sate Ulat Sago

I had tried this before at the Danau Sentani Cultural Festival, since it is a traditional Papuan food specialty... But since it made an appearance at the Traditional Food Fair at the Raja Ampat Festival as well, I had to try it again!

And actually, it was different... I remember it being kind of sweet and almost carmelized the first time... Well, this version was very oily, and tasted kinda like cheese....   not so delicious.

Obviously, ii's reaction was not one of pure taste bliss !  haha!

 Well, I guess I missed Hallowe'en again, but at least this year I got a little taste of spooky food!  And it sounds like it's not just here in Papua, but insect-eating is becoming a trend in SF as well... and I remember back when I was planting we made blackfly pie in the bush one year... 

Fruit of a Princess

Buah Putri literally translates as Princess Fruit....  and there's nothing in the jungles of Papua that can make you feel more like a forest nymph!

The fruits grow the length of the vine and they have a beautiful wrapping of a fuzzy fluffy nest of fine green filaments with pretty pink tips.

The fruit transforms into a golden nugget when ripe, and tastes like passion fruit, and the flowers appear to be fit only for royalty.

...And even better yet, its filamentous fibres lather up... Apparently the locals here used to bathe with it... I saved some to try, and although it wasn't quite as liberating as I'd imagine it would be bathing in cool river waters in the middle of the forest with a backdrop of birdsong, it still left me feeling fresh!

Bulana

It seems nobody has written about this tasty little fruit before... I don't know the English name, and when I searched for the Indonesian name I was told it is called bulana, even that was non-existent online... perhaps it is a local dialect.

The closest thing I found online was something called Duhat, which it could very well be, given the descriptions online.

Here is the tree (sorry, too far away for any kind of ID):

And the fruit:

Bulana are small, plum-like fruits that are about the size of a large olive... They're tasty - quite sweet, but with a sour edge.  But more than taste... bulana produces a unique textural feeling in the mouth as well which is hard to describe - it's like it sucks all the saliva from the mouth lining for a split second, producing a slightly numbing sensation, which is replaced by a sense that the entire tongue and inner mouth has been coated with a fine fur, and just as quickly, it's gone...  Although when ripe, you can eat them straight off the tree, I'm told that often the fruits don't get a chance to ripen on the branches - they're just too delicious slightly underripe with salt.  (This is also a common taste for eating under-ripe mangoes here as well).  On each occasion I've tried them, I've had a different sensation of taste... most recently I thought it tasted mildly akin to the nutmeg fruit I tried, with a hint of spice.... That was on Bunaken Island, where apprently they call them Anggur Bunaken (Bunaken Grapes)!

One thing to be careful of is the juice - it stains instantly; a purple splotch is a tel-tale sign that people have been eating bulana!

The website that I found referring to 'duhat' says another name for this fruit is the Java Plum, which makes me even more sure that we're talking about the same thing here... Syzgium cumini.  Actually... seeing the latin name makes me wonder if this is the fruit of cumin (if I remember the pit is approximately the right size and shape)... that would explain its 'spicey' taste, too...  and we are, afterall, only a hop-skip away from the "Spice Islands" of Maluku!

Gifts from the Forest Queen

Even though I now spend more time on the coast and in the ocean, and have in effect metamorphized into a sea pixie from my previous being as a forest nymph, I still enjoy any chance I get to romp around my 'old playground'...

... except my 'old playground' holds all kinds of new surprises. (which in itself is no surprise, since a forest is not just a forest, and the forsts of my formidible years are a far cry from the tropical forests in these parts... yet, i digress.)

This earth is an incredible mother - a host to us and so many millions of other species... for all of whom she provides.

In Waigeo Island, there seems no end to the special and secret treats afforded us by the forests.

There are bulana, root fruits, and mangoes...

And one mustn't forget my favourite, buah putri... the princess fruit.

Tokok Sago - Trying to lend a hand!?

Tokok Sago is the processing of the sago tree into sago flour, the traditional staple in Papua.  I've written about it a bit here and here and here before... 

I have seen it done a few times in Raja Ampat, and participated in both Biak and Sarmi.

In the village of Beneraf, in the Sarmi Regency, we were invited to join the village as they went to the river to cut and process a sago palm (whose leaves they also use for rooves).

First the trek out into the forest to find and chop down the sago palm tree...

They then peel the bark from the tree and start hacking away at the pith... 

To hack out the pith of the tree a primitive bamboo tool is used, rendering the pith to a soft mulch...

The mulch is then saturated in water and squeezed through a multi-filter system to extract the starch... 

All the materials they use to cut and process the sago are completely natural, including the fine mesh they use to filter the sago through... it's actually the gauze wrap from the whorl of the banana tree.

Apparently the processing of the sago pith/pulp rids the sago of a protein potentially poisonous for mammals...  So, rid of the poisons, it's on to the cooking phase!  Actually, to make the simplest sago dish, papeda, all you need is the sago and boiling water...

Boilding water is added to the sago starch while mixing...

... and almost instantly it turns into a glue-like paste - ta-da!

The other way they showed us to cook papeda in Beneraf was part of the 'Bakar Batu' process... they remove red-hot stones from the fire and put them into the sago/water mixture.  When the mixture reaches the right texture/consistency, it literally spits the stones back out!

The following excerpt is taken from my Biak blog:  The next day we enjoyed an early morning walk through Sagu plantations (hoping for hike, and a chance to inaugurate my shiny new white shoes, but our guide didn't show).  We expected this area to be relatively pristine forest, since we were in a 'reserve', and all - I should know better, after this long in Indonesia...

Anyway, it was a nice walk, and our hosts, a group of Sagu farmers that invited us to join as they cut and worked a Sagu Palm (Tokok Sagu).  It was great to learn more about this traditional staple of Papua from these kind and fun men!

We also each took a turn trying our hand at pounding the sago pith into mulch...

A giant stick bug showed up for the work bee as well...

... careful not to get pricked by the sagu spikes, we picked our way through the forest...

Yikes!

Crazy Rice

On my way through Jakarta this time I discovered a little treat right around the corner from the budget hotel where I usually stay... Crazy Rice!  The place is called "Nasi Gila", literally crazy rice, and is known for its unique dish...

It should be noted of course, that there are as many varieties of Nasi Goreng Gila as there are crazies in Jakarta!

Spice Islands!

The Moluccas are known as the "Spice Islands" for very good reason.

We often found nutmeg, mace (actually the filigree surrounding the nutmeg pit), cloves and chocolate drying by the roadside, adding a lovely fragrant aroma to our travels.

Spices drying by the roadside

Chocolate beans

Nutmeg

Mace (the filigree around the nutmeg pit)

Nutmeg fruit (unripe)

Dried Nutmeg fruit candy

There was also ginger, galangal, tumeric, lemongrass and lots of other great herbs and spices found in the markets... and in the food!

Galangal with Market lady

No, it's not ginger... similar, but much more whitish (than yellow) inside

lovely little packages of seri (lemongrass) for sale for apount ten cents

We found Ambon not only rich in spices, but also all manner of fruit... which I think is the defining factor for their famous Rujak Natsepa (a special Indonesian spicy peanutty fruit salad)!

And of course, there's always that lone chicken with his beautiful pink wall...