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[EXPAT VOICE] Taking a bite out of home
Indonesian food is not available at Alanya’s markets. The dishes that I missed more than anything were bakso (Indonesian meatball), batagor (a dish made of tofu and cassava starch), siomay (a dish made from made from cassava starch mixed with fish), instant noodles and much more.
At that time we didn’t have a computer so I couldn’t search for recipes over the Internet. So I just cooked according to my instincts. I just thought to myself, bakso is almost the same as köfte!
After a year and a half passed by and I had obtained a computer and gained access to the Internet, I began searching for Indonesian food recipes online. I searched for the names of spices in Turkish to make it easier for me to find them at the market or in the spice shops. Once or twice a week Indonesian food became a regular custom in our house; my husband and daughter like it very much.
Despite seeming very different, there are actually similarities between Turkish and Indonesian cuisine; for example, terong balado in Indonesia is similar to Turkish patlıcanlı karnıyarık (eggplants stuffed with fried ground beef) and bakso kuah is a lot like the delicious sulu köfte (meat balls served with a soup-like tomato sauce).
One food item that I truly wish was available in Alanya is instant noodles, just because they are so practical to cook. Every time I come back from Indonesia I always bring instant noodles and spices with me. Instant spices come in both powder and paste form and allow you to prepare dishes easily without worrying about all of the different packages of spices. For example, if I want to cook gulai sapi (Indonesian beef curry), then I just open the pre-packaged spice mix. It’s brilliant. Sometimes I think having the same pre-made packages for Turkish dishes would be great.
Just about all of my friends who come to Turkey from Indonesia know about my yearning for foods from home, so they are kind enough to bring all sorts of goodies for me.
In 2007 I received a gift from tourists whom I had never met in person when my husband came home with a bag full of Indonesian food. A while before that a tourist couple happened to pass by our shop and my husband asked them about their origins because he thought they were Indonesian. When they said that they are Singaporean but lived in Holland it sparked up a conversation about me. Come autumn, when they were preparing to leave Alanya, they had all these unused spices and foods that they had brought with them. It was a relief to see that I’m not alone in my quest to make perfect Indonesian foods in another part of the world. So these lovely people dropped off the bag full of foods, asking my husband to pass it on to me. I think to this day they have no idea how delighted I was at their amazing gift.
As an Indonesian living abroad, I know that missing food is just a part of a larger sentiment, longing for home and the memories you have involving food: family dinners, celebrations and long chats in the kitchen. I’m lucky enough to have friends in Europe and the US who can easily satisfy my cravings. But here in Turkey it’s very rare to find supermarkets that carry Indonesian food. I have heard that there’s a Chinese market located in Taksim, İstanbul, which stocks Asian foods, but not all expats live in İstanbul, although I do envy the ones that do!
One thing that living in Turkey has taught me is how to actually cook Indonesian food, explore recipes over the Internet and tweak ingredients to create dishes that have an Indonesian spirit. Who knows, maybe some day I will sign my name to a fusion cuisine that merges the best of Indonesia and Turkey?
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