Indonesia is known for its culinary, expecially traditional foods because of its unique and special taste. Traditional foods also shows the diversity of Indonesian culture and tradition that are passed down from generation to generation. But unfortunately, there are some traditional foods in Indonesia that are pretty hard to find nowdays.
Here are 6 traditional foods that are almost extinct in Indonesia:
1. Kidu
The first traditional food that pretty rare to find nowdays is Kidu from North Sumatera. More precisely, Kidu is one of signature food from Karo tribe that passed down from their ancestor. This traditional food kinda unique because it made of sago worm, a worm type that is known from the rotten tipalia trees.
Okay, I know you’ll be like “Eh? Worm? Rotten trees?”; but you must know that sago worm is actually edible. With an important note, of course. Kidu need to be cooked with special spices that are hard to find, and that’s what make this food is almost extinct nowdays. Not only that, we need to master the special technique to cook Kidu to be precise and safe to eat. Wrong cooking methods will lead to failure of Kidu and make us get stomachache from eating it.
2. Gulo Puan
Still from Sumatera, precisely in Palembang, the next traditional food that rare to find nowdays is Gulo Puan. The taste of Guon Pulo is like caramel and cheese blending together, with sweet and salty taste mix together. The unique thing from Gulo Puan is this food using buffalo milk, especially swamp buffalo, as its main ingridient along with brown sugar.
Not only became one of signature food in Palembang, Gulo Puan is also has historical value. This food used to served for royal family or aristocratic, where the citizen give it as a tribute. The kings back then used to eat Gulo Puan as a snack while drinking some coffee. But nowdays Gulo Puan is rare because the ingridient, swamp buffalo milk, is pretty hard to find.
3. Babanci
Next traditional foods that are almost extinct in Indonesia is Babanci, a dish from Betawi tribe in Jakarta. People named it Babanci because of its uncertain form; it’s not a curry, not a soup, nor a soto. The uncertain factor is also come from its ingridients that made from 21 various ingridients, including rare spices. The dish commonly use beef, coconut flesh, and some rare spices for its ingridients.
The 21 various ingridients make Babanci tastes rich and complex, but also still has typical Betawi tribe taste. As you already guessed, the rare ingridients and spices made Babanci is hard to find nowdays. In the past, Babanci usually served as a feast in Eid and only people from upper class who can eat it.
4. Wedang Tahu
Unlike its name, this traditional food from Semarang, Central Java, was not made from tofu (tahu). Wedang Tahu is made from soybean extract, with its soft texture and looks like tofu or sum sum porridge. Wedang Tahu suitable to accompany you in the night time at Semarang, with its ginger soup and spices. But unfortunately, Wedang Tahu is not as famous as Wedang Ronde so it’s hard to find it even in Semarang.
5. Sego Lemeng
This one actually has a strong historical value, as a food stock for the guerrillas when they fought against Dutch during colonialism era. Sego Lemeng is a food from Banyuwangi, East Java, that has been around since 1771. The word Lemeng means make the stomach calm down, in other word it’s a food to filling up stomach during that harsh condition.
Seto Lemeng is made from rice and chicken or fish meat that wrapped by banana leaf. That banana leaf then fill in bamboo slats to grill until it cooked well. At a glance, Seto Lemeng looks like other traditional food such as Lontong or Lemper. But Seto Lemeng is lasted more, for about 3 days, thanks to its slow cook methods and the smoke from grilling as natural preservative.
6. Bassang
Bassang is a traditional porridge as one of signature dish from Makassar, South Sulawesi. The word Bassang means the full stomach and used to be served for breakfast. Bassang made from pulut corn, the ingridient that can only be found at Makassar. Due to competition with new food and losing interest, Bassang was hard to find. But the good news is the Bassang seller started to make inovation nowdays, such as adding topping to their Bassang.
Those are 6 traditional foods that are almost extinct in Indonesia nowdays. So, are you intersted to try those traditional foods?
