JAVAN COOKERY

Greymouth Evening Star, 8 December 1923, Page 3

JAVAN COOKERY

A NOVELTY MEAL. The Hague is the Mecca of the Dutch-Indian. From Java, Sumatra and other East Indian islands the Dutchmen home on leave forgather at ,The Hague, writes L. te.. Ramsay from Holland’s capital, to an English exchange. ‘‘My cousin has asked us to a rice table on Sunday. Do you care to come?” asked my friend from Java. Of course I had heard of a. rice table, but I did not know that it was possible to have one in Europe, and I said so. “Everything is dried instead of being fresh, except those fruits and vegetables that grow in Holland; but still, you will get an idea of what a rice table is like,” was the reply. We sat round a large dining table, each with a soup plate in front of us. We ought to have been waited on by dusky natives in spotless white with turbaned heads, but instead, a smiling Dutch girl, who seemed to think it all rather a joke, handed tfte dishes. First she brought a huge bowl of rice, exquisitely cooked; every grain was separate and\ dry and glistening white in appearance. Each person took a large helping so that the bottom of the soup-plate was completely covered. Then with a spoon each smoothed out the rice so that it lay flat. This is the “table.” The next dish was a sort of cake, made of veal, spiced and curried, of which you took a slice and laid it on the rice. Next came curried chicken, of wh’ch you took a. wing, a slice of the breast, a lee r , according to taste, and laid

that next to the veal. Then followed a skewer for each person of slices of fillet, especially curried and dressed, which took its place next to the chicken. Followed slices of roast pork, in very rich gravv, to which you also helped yourself. After this came a large bowl of many kinds of vegetables, beans, caul I flower, carrots and the like, floating in creamy curried sauce i.n which coconut was the predominating flavour. It was freshly grated, not desiccated Then innumerable little sauces and jars were handed round of all sorts of pickles and chutneys and sauces, some of them so hot that the minutest portion brought tears to one’s eyes. There were red peppers and tamarinds and gherkins and all sorts of

pickles. All the other guests took something of everything, and I did the same.

Then you took your knife and fork and cut up the meat, laid the knife down on the rest provided, and mixed the rice table al! up together with your spoon and fork. And then you started eating it. And it was good. With it you ate little cakes. something like unleavened bread, as thin as thin, and thick