Indonesian Summer
A newbie reports back from Astoria’s monthly Indonesian Food Bazaar
Written by Stacy Lazar; Photographed by Donnelly Marks
ASTORIA — I come from a family of fourth-generation Eastern European chocolate makers in Bayside, and I must admit, I didn’t know much about Indonesian food. Luckily, I found many warm guides at the monthly Indonesian Food Bazaar, who made me feel like a skilled eater and a welcome part of their community. Rubiah, who would only provide her first name, was one of many Indonesian women I met, but she proved to be the most memorable. After lamenting that I had arrived too late for the fair’s sold-out kastangas, she revealed a hidden stash of these Indonesian treats for me to sample. Customarily served as finger-foods at Indonesian functions, the bite-sized snack’s surprising resemblance to Cheese Nips was the perfect start for a novice like me. With this palatable prelude, I was ready for total immersion.
Thrilled by my curiosity, Rubiah educated me on the flavors endemic to Yogyakarta, the province of Indonesia she calls home. She handed me powdered sugar-dusted almond cookies called “snow princesses” and a bowl of kue lupis, a sticky rice roll with grated coconut, swimming in cloying syrup. She also saved me—along with my ego and digestive track—from biting into the steamed banana leaf surrounding lemper ayam’s sticky rice and chicken. Indeed, the wrapper is inedible.
My conversation with Rubiah revealed that women are the keepers of the Indonesian culinary tradition, storing recipes in the mind as heirlooms to be passed along from mother to daughter. Novia Tanjung, playfully known as Auntie Upi (meaning sister), is one of these women. She stood before heaping piles of deep-fried beef jerky called dendeng and beef cooked for eight hours in coconut milk, chili, and spices called rendang. On Tanjung’s recommendation, I accepted a plate of rendang and rice. The balance of flavors was impeccable—delicate, slow-cooked beef mingling flawlessly with a ferocious chili sauce. Its heat could only be mollified by a strategic side of sticky white rice.
Next I met Dini Thiney, known for making the fish dumplings called siomay, native to West Sumatra. I would have tried these had I not been distracted by the Nerf-shaped dessert stacked in the corner known as Kue bola—a puffy, subtly sweet sesame ball with a center made from mung bean. This, I loved.
No spectacle was as mesmerizing though, as my introduction to rojak—fruit salad slathered in a peanut sauce made of spices, brown sugar, shrimp paste, and five feverish chili peppers. As its maker, Sri Gazalba, was busy pulverizing ingredients with her weathered mortar and pestle, she insisted I dunk a mango slice into the fresh batch. Initially apprehensive, I was pleasantly surprised by how the coolness of the fruit detracted from the potential flames in my mouth.
Near the end of my visit, I was drawn to Fery Rumida, one of the few men toiling away at the fair. Rumida methodically ladled a traditional Indonesian drink called cendol into cup after cup for his constant line of customers. Made up of coconut milk, syrup, brown sugar, and slippery little rice flour nuggets, the beverage was both foreign and fulfilling. I asked Rumida how many tubs he had made in preparation for the day. Glancing at his stock, hardly looking up from his duties, he replied, “My wife makes it.”
WHERE TO GO
Due to Ramadan, there is no food bazaar in August, but to try a free sampling of a host of Indonesian foods, visit the Indonesian Independence Day Celebration on Sunday, Aug. 8 at Alley Pond Park, at the intersection of 76th Ave. and Springfield Blvd., Douglaston. We hear that each region of Indonesia will have its own food table!
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