Shadow Cooking

I guess, it took not too much time too notice the essential of the eating culture once you live and breathe in certain area. I’ve been living in Sydney, Australia for almost a decade now and having grown up and live in Indonesia pretty much for the first quarter century of my life, the main difference between east and west in relation of eating culture is quite clear to me. And yes, there are quite interesting differences that might interest you.

Fried Rice Culture

a plate of fried rice

If I have to select 1 dish only to represent the eastern eating culture that I know of, it will be the humble fried rice. A plate of fried rice is one of common meal – in term of frequency and variety – on most dining table – restaurant or homemade.

But a few interesting thing we can extract from a serve of fried rice:

1. The dominant content is steamed rice, which is a carbohydrate item (carbohydrate-centric)
2. The additional ingredient will be the “good stuff”: chicken, pork, or even seafood variety
3. The spices are complex and will be different from table to table.  Some time, exotic ingredient can be incorporated
4. The quality of the food is heavily depended to this expert skill from the chef. You can follow the exact recipe, but the result will be completely different
5. A dining usually just one course with steam rice as main and several dishes serve at once and each individual can choose their preference.
6. In a party situation, the quantity of of it being consumed is the indicator whether or not the guest like the food. The host will be flattered if a guest ask for some more and he/she will do everything on his/her power to make sure enough inventory are ready.

In general, the usual modus operandi of eating will be everybody to get their own of steam rice as the main meal and the meat dish or soup or something else to be the flavour of the meal.

Meat Salad alternative

a bowl of salad

On the other hand, I will represent a more westernize eating culture with a meat salad dish, which is similar in proportion with a serve of steak. Basically the highlight will be:

1. The dominant content is the focus of the meal “the good stuff”: chicken, fish, beef, pork, etc (protein-centric)
2. All others are just the additional side, including rice, veggies, potato, soup, etc
3. The spices are much more simple and easy to be reproduce even by novice chef
4. The quality of the food is more on the quality of the raw material and the variety of it.
5. A dining usually consists of several courses with different kind of food served each.
6. In party situation, every guest will have approximately similar portion. Quantity consumed is not really matter

In general, the main meat will be the focus and the rest is just the additional variety.

Quite a different

The background of socio culture will influence the eating culture. As you probably know, some of the eastern country in Asia is economically still under development. While they are themselves are the primary producer of the primary food, most of the time buying a meat is something of a luxury. Therefore, the tendency is to eat more rice to fill your hunger more effectively and the meat and all other extra is just for the taste and variety. So, eating is more on keeping you full. Also need to remember, that some of these countries has endured some starvation period on their history where food is very precious and not everybody can have access on it.

satay on skew

But on more economically advanced western civilization, eating is more of enjoyment. Not only the food , but also the accompany of each other. Yes, eating is still to conquer hunger but not so much to stuff up your tummy. I mean, once you finish that slice of steak, that’s it. There isn’t much spare. But if you eat steam rice with a fried chicken, you can always serve yourself with another portion of the rice while managing the amount of the chicken that you have.

Let see this gorgeous chicken satay barbecue on skewers on the left here.

Westernized culture people will just enjoy to eat skewer after skewer with just some salad as side. Yes, I can do this now, I have changed my eating culture a bit. But before, if I got this plate, I will make sure that I have rice to eat it with. Maybe it can be split into 2 meals: for lunch and dinner (as I can just eat few skewers for each).

And there is a saying, “before you eat with rice, then you haven’t actually eat anything”. Quite a different isn’t it ?

^{Nov 2009}

By Denis Kristanda - Category: Cooking Thoughts