JAVANESE CULINARY

The Javanese contracting labourers were farmers. They introduced several plants, fruits, herbs and spices. They succeeded to preserve their culinary. Many herbs and spices which were unknown to other people and were introduced. Several wild growing herbs are used by the Javanese people as vegetable, which are not consired as vegetable by the other people. For example the kembang turi, the flower of a kind of three, which they brought from Indonesia, is used as vegetable. Bamboo sprouts are common vegetables among the Javanese people. The dagublad, a crawling herb growing in the natural water cources are nowadays regularly used as vegetable by most of the Surinamese people, whilst in the past only Javanese people used this herb as vegetable.

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Javanese snacks, sate Photo: Copyright © 2002 Moekiran A. Amatali	Javanese snacks, cinil and mendoth Photo: Copyright © 2002 Moekiran A. Amatali

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The contribution of the Javanese people in the Surinamese culinary is significant. Nowadays there are many small and bigger Javanese restaurants, called "warungs", in many parts of the country. Many snacks/dishes originating from Javanese culinary are regularly used by all the Surinamese people. The most popular ones are teloh (fried cassava), bami (noodles), nasi goreng (fried rice), picil (boiled vegetables with peanut sauce), gedang goreng (bakka bana, plantain fried with flour), chips of cassava and plantain, sate (roasted meat basted with a bamboo stick), saoto (a kind of soup), lumpia (fried rolled up pancake filled with vegetable and meat) and dawet (drink made of coconut milk). Nowadays there are also dishes available at the bigger Javanese restaurants, which are not available at an ordinary warung. The "rijsttafel" is an example. This is a meal which is composed of several Javanese/Indonesian dishes. It sould be mentioned that in the western hemisphere currently the Javanese dishes are only available in Suriname.

Appart from the above mentioned popular snacks/dishes there are also other snacks which are generally prepared by the elder generation only. These snacks are less common among the other Surinamese people, and are only prepared for special occasions, since the recipe is not known among the younger generation, like cinil (small balls made of grated cassava, with grated coconut), lapis (a kind of cake made of grinded rice), mendoth (a snack made of grinded ketan, a kind of rice, filled with sweetened grated coconut, wrapped in a piece of banana leave and steamed in a pot), lemet (a kind of snack made of grated cassava and raisins, wrapped in a peace of banana leave and steamed in a pot), jenang lot (a kind of cake made of grinded ketan) and ondeh-ondeh (a kind of pastry made of grinded ketan and sesame seeds, filled with sweetened grated coconut). These snacks are sold at few locations and can be ordered at certain persons.

The snacks/dishes are prepared with special Javanese ingridients and spices. The following ingredients and spices are used commonly in Javanese culinary: trasi (paste of shrimps), salam leaves (dried leaves of a kind of tree), kunir (yellow ginger), garlic, onion, sereh (lemon grass), ginger, kencur (root of a kind of herb), laos (root of a herb, family of the ginger), ketumbar (a kind of spice), jinten (a kind of spice), soy sauce and coconut milk. Nowadays also western ingredients are added.