Cookbook: Indonesian Regional Cooking

the appetizer:

Indonesian cuisine was influenced by traders from India, the Middle East, China, and, later, Spain and Portugal. The Dutch, who colonized many of the 6,000 islands that make up Indonesia, adapted the buffet eating style of the native peoples, into the famous rijstaffel (or rice table). Sambals and tempeh, an adaptation of tofu, also originated in Indonesia.

Indonesia

Indonesian Regional Cooking

A World of Intoxicating Aromas and Delectable Tastes

By Sri Owen

"To write about food is to write about place," says Sri Owen. The follow-up to last year's acclaimed, award-winning The Rice Book, Indonesian Regional Cooking is an extraordinary new work in which Owen does just that; a native of West Sumatra, she now shares her expertise on the subject she knows best—the regional cuisines of Indonesia.

The fourth largest nation in the world, Indonesia enjoys a bounty of fresh fish, rice, chili peppers, coconut, and vibrant, distinctive spices. Indonesian Regional Cooking presents more than two hundred of the best recipes, both traditional and modern, from the principal areas of this vast country—Sumatra, Bali, Kalimantan, Maluku, Java, and the capital city of Jakarta—made with ingredients readily available in North America.

Sri Owen's informed text brings the cultural and culinary traditions of this exotic land to life, just as her recipes prove Indonesian cooking to be among the best in the world.

About the Author

Sri Owen is the author of The Rice Book (SMP, 1993), which won the prestigious Andre Simon Award (in England) and was nominated for the James Beard Award (in the U.S.A.). Born and raised in Sumatra, she is widely acknowledged as the world's preeminent expert in Indonesian cooking. She currently lives in London.

Indonesian Regional Cooking
By Sri Owen
St. Martin's Press, 1995
$18.95 Hardcover
288 Pages, with 50 line illustrations
ISBN: 0-312-11832-5
Reprinted with permission