Balinese Cakes in Visitors’ Eyes

The introduction of Balinese traditional cakes to foreign tourists as a regional cultural attractive asset is interesting to visitors both local and overseas, according to a scholar trained in community nutritional science Drs. H. Suklan, SKM, M.Sc., MM, from the Indonesian Department of Health. He stated 75.6 percent of overseas tourists said they take great interest in Indonesian cakes, including Balinese. Never the less, a mere 15.6 percent of them dare to taste them.
Seemingly, in support of the former assertion, Ms. Tuti Sunardi from the Culinary Institute of Management Jakarta, stated that there is only 20 – 25 percent of fat is found in traditional cakes, whilst speaking recently at the Hotel Sanur Paradise on the theme of “By means of Healthy Culinary Guaranteeing Consumers’ Security”. Those quarters preferring Balinese cakes argue that the cakes are rich in protein and free of chemical material, whilst they are also non-cholesterol. These people certainly hope visitors will take the food back as gifts to family members and friends in their home countries.
In general, specific culinary delights in certain countries are worth promoting to foreigners, who in turn would tell their families and acquaintances what they ate and saw abroad, mainly foods and ways of life, that are specific to peoples and countries overseas. Local people of Finland, for example, known among natives as Suomi, would like to introduce their visiting friends having other skin colors, such as black or dark, to their aunts, uncles, cousins, and in-laws.
We visited families in rural areas, for instance in Am Anger, a small village located at the foot of Alp Mountain, in Munich, South Germany. In this small village, in addition to the family we visited, almost all the locals were friendly, from police to church priests, greeting us with ‘gruesgot’ in dialect, and even asked where we learnt German. Locals were surprised knowing that in Indonesia, even in Singaraja (Bali), the German language has been on a program of study at Senior High Schools.
Even, I got a surprise when the aged mother of my host, packed some apple fruits upon leaving the Am Anger family for a further trip in Europe. It looked similar to Grandpa and Grandma treatment in rural areas of Bali, to see younger children going back home or to school in other districts. Older men like to give money or food to children upon returning home, or returning to school after vacation.
In 1964, I spent several days in London visiting a girl acquaintance to accompany her in sightseeing the metropolis. When I phoned her from a city railway station to her home, her father informed me she was still at work in the office until evening . The man, a trade unionist, picked me up in his car, and we waited several hours for her daughter to finish work whilst listening to some Japanese classical music, and talking.
I visited him at his office the following day and was introduced to his colleagues. I had only three days to spend in London, a large city possibly reflected at that time by a blitz of visiting nightly shows in Piccadilly, accompanied by the girl.
What I felt in London was a sincere friendship of a metropolitan family in Europe, a similar social atmosphere I had noticed among Slovak people during my meetings with Czech people in a state of Republic of Czechoslovakia, under State President Antonin Novotny in 1950s. Once I visited Bratislava in Slovakia to make an acquaintance with a pair of lovers who were waiting for their university graduation.
My experience in Europe showed in effect that the human stomach, or menu, could develop and establish friendship among people of various nations as expressed in tourism in Bali so far. So, it would not be unusual for overseas tourists to be eager to taste Balinese food as shown for example in Kramas Beach, located near Blahbatuh (about 15 km to the East from Denpasar). Many Balinese performing traditional rites such as the ngaben cremation, often see foreign tourists enjoying Balinese food such as lawar, which is composed of vegetables mixed with minced meat and blood. It would be interesting for locals to know the reaction of foreigners who tasted lawar , while stimulating friendship among people of different nations.
I remember many writers of books on how to succeed in developing and maintaining love relations between husband and wife, have advised wives not to neglect their husband’s stomachs by cooking or serving dishes he enjoys. Love relations between married couples has been built on a specific friendship, while many students coming from smaller cities from outside Java such as Manado, South Kalimantan and Bali during pre-WW II period, got married to the daughters of the families, who prepared food for the students’ meal during their room rental with the family.
So we could cite other examples where culinary influence might greatly control the trend of human behavior development, including contacts with overseas visitors by the people of Bali. Many foreign painters and artists resided in Ubud, Sanur and Bedulu after marrying local Balinese dancers. (BTN/*)