There's much less foreign food served in Indonesia than in most ex-colonies, lucky for you. All traditional Indonesian food is designed to complement or to be complemented by rice. Indonesian cuisine is known for its deliberate combination of contrasting flavors and textures: spicy, sour, and otherwise flavor-assertive dishes. Indonesia taught the world the use of exotic spices. In Indonesian cooking spices are used less than in the curries of India, yet more than in Chinese food. Tumeric, a yellow root that resembles a small carrot, is used often in Indonesian recipes. Soybean is the vegetable cow of Indonesia. Coconut, coconut milk, chilis, ginger, and peanuts are used more than in other Asian cooking. Freshly grated coconut is kneaded and sieved, then blended with water. As it cooks, the coconut milk thickens and with the addition of flour or corn starch it becomes a sauce. Bananas are used frequently to season meats and stews.

The basic diet on most of the islands is rice, lots of it, supplemented with a bit of fish, often fried, and once in a while savory meat, eggs, and vegetables. Anything with the word nasi in front of it means that it's prepared or served with rice. Indonesian food is delicious at a// levels. You can eat unbelievably cheap. Often the country people eat more healthily than the rich who gorge themselves and their children on status foods such as meat, carbohydrates, beer, soda and chocolate. Country people eat hearty organic foods such as tahu (soybean cake), tempe (fermented soybeans), or coconut candy and cane syrup which are all 'poor man's food' and much more nutritious. The traditional way to eat is with the fingers of the right hand touching the food; fingers taste better than metal.

Always eat with the right hand, the left hand is used in the toilet. (They used to cut the right hand off thieves, thereby preventing him from ever eating in public again.) Meals are often served on a banana leaf which tastes better than plastic or glass. The appearance of the dish counts for a lot. If it doesn't look good, Indonesians can't eat it. Great care is taken at markets to make the food attractive so as catch the shopper's eye: flowers are sprinkled over fruit, dishes are brightly garnished, and green leaves spread under vegetables. As you'll notice on any busride, Indonesians have very delicate stomachs. When they visit Australia and eat Colonel Sander's chicken for the first time, they throw up. For those who are into cooking, there's tremendous diversity in the markets: grains, beans, brown and black rice, palm sugar, all kinds of fruits and vegetables, spices, and where there are Chinese people, ginseng (organic speed).