Kampong Life

Kutupats made from young coconut leaves. The leaves are woven into little bags and fill with rice then boiled .Serve with Satay.
Photo taken of some Kampong houses in Bali [ a little village] Notice the coconut trees.

Hi,

Today I'll talk abit about life in the kampongs. In most kampongs there is a headman, he will usually settle disputes and keep peace among the families. There is a local doctor [a medicine man called ' Bomoh'] and a midwife.

Some kampongs have different races living together and this brought about many different local dishes that have a bit of everything in them. So today, we are very fortunate to taste so many unique dishes.

Dishes made with no measurement of ingredients, only by taste. Any family that cooks the same dish will have different result.

The hot and spicy Indian curries, the milder Malay curries, cooked with alot of coconut cream [lemaks] The sambals and fresh salads. These all blended into the Asian cooking of today. The nonya cooking, another beautiful cuisine.

Later I'll talk about chinese village cooking. [Chinese Kampong]

In most kampongs, they have a lot of coconut trees and with this tree, every part of the tree is used.

The young leaves are made into little bags for boiling rice the [Kutupat] or used for making desserts. The old leaves are stripped and the hard middle stem is made into skewers for the satays. Some are made into a bundle and used as a broom.

Some trees are kept for the coconut drink ["todi", a fermented drink, too much will also make you drunk]. This drink is made from the flowers of the coconut tree. The bunch of flowers are tied up really tight, [early in the morning before sunrise] and a pot is tied at the tip to collect the sweet sap that flows out in 3-4 days. This is collected, bottled and sold as Todi.

Young coconut juice is also a favourite of the young and old, said to cool you after a hot day. The old coconuts are used for cooking. The husk is removed and the nut is creaked open, the white flesh is scraped out with a special scraper. Water is added alittle at a time to squeeze out the cream [santan] this is added to most kampong cooking.

Coconut oil is also made from the first pure suqeeze, with no water added. This is fried over slow fire till the oil floats to the top. This is the best smelling home made coconut oil.Kampong people also use this for their hair and body.

Copyright © 2005 May Fam