Halo!
For this post I have decided to introduce to you the names of our eating and cooking utensils. Alongside, you might also learn Indonesians’ eating and cooking culture.
As is the case with all living beings (baring a few), Indonesians are also very concerned about what we eat. After all, eating is one of humanity’s basic needs. We also have a specific times regarding eating, though this tradition is mostly observed in the older generation, as the younger gets busier and have been influenced by differing cultures.
As with almost all Asian countries, the staple food of Indonesians is rice. Most of us still held the subconscious belief that as long as we have not eaten rice then we have not eaten yet. Of course, not all Indonesians eat rice as their main carb; in some islands, corn and cassava are the norms. We also enjoy other type of carbs such as noodle and pasta, bread and other wheat products, potatoes, and yams. However, you might find some Indonesians who eat, for example, instant noodle coupled with rice. Or even just plain rice with sweet soy sauce and kerupuk (a type of crackers) is sometimes considered a luxury.
Overall, we use spoon and fork when eating. Spoon, which we call sendok, is held by the right hand, and fork, which we call garpu, is held using the left hand. The idea is that the spoon waits for the food which will be pushed into it by the fork, though sometimes they meet in the middle. The fork might also be used to stabilised the food inside the spoon by gently pressing it a bit to make sure the food does not fall on its way to our mouth.
Sometimes, we only use spoon, particularly when we eat soup or porridge. Fork, on the other hand, will only be used by itself to eat certain type of snacks, such as fried sliced banana or resoles, to eat certain western foods, such as spaghetti, or to eat noodles. When eating noodles though, it also depends on the type of noodles we are currently eating. If, for example, we are eating fried noodle, then a fork in the right hand is enough. If the noodle has a soup, though, we can use either a spoon or a fork, where if we eat it with a fork then we will lift the bowl to drink the soup. Another option is to use a par of chopsticks. Chopsticks, which we call sumpit, is most often used when eating any type of noodles (and, in this modern time, Japanese and Chinese food).
We almost never, however, use a knife, which we call pisau, when eating. I have only use it when eating steaks, which is a western dish and does not, traditionally, come from Indonesia. We do, however, often opt to use no utensils at all! Yes, that’s right, we actually love to eat food, especially our rice and snacks, with our bare hands. Of course, we have to wash it or clean it first before eating lest we might suffer from diarrhoea. Otherwise, we instinctively use our hands to eat most Indonesian food. That’s why we seldom use forks for snacks, actually, as we will naturally extend our hand to reach for those snacks rather than searching for a fork and plate. Eating a snack, for example resoles, by putting it in a plate and using your fork to cut it into small pieces and bring it to your mouth seems too…elegant for us, as in only some higher-born people would do that. Well, my father does that sometimes when he wants to keep his hands clean or when he can’t be bothered to go to the restroom to wash his hands, though. Ah, by the way, plates are called piring in Bahasa Indonesia, whereas bowls are called mangkok.
For our drinks, we most often use cups, which are called gelas. FYI, the word gelas can also means glass, as traditionally our cups are made out of glass. Not anymore though, since everything seems to be made of plastic of some sort these days. But relax, the glass and ceramic mugs and cups still exist. For things like hot coffee or tea, we called those cups as cangkir, different from in English where the more common term would be teacup, and the kettle in where water is boiled in or where the tea/coffee is steeped in is called teko. We don’t really have a world for mug, though, so we just call them as cangkir or, nowadays, directly as mug. Other beverage containers include bottles, which we call botol, and thermos, which we call, well, termos, and sometimes also the fruit itself can become a container, which is the case for young coconut juice, or kelapa muda. Some restaurants use something resembling a beer mug for their drinks, though the content would most probably be iced tea or fruit juice. Well, Indonesia does not really have a tradition of proudly drinking alcoholic beverages though, so it is not surprising. Beers and the like are still available, though it’s less commonly available and drunk like in Japan, South Korea, or France.
Trivia: While not actually for common beverage, chalices, like we oft seen in Churches, are called cawan, which means cup, or piala, which means trophy, in Bahasa Indonesia. Usually, either of those two words is followed by the word suci, which means holy, to make sure people understand its divinity.
Next, let’s move on to our cooking equipment and utensils.
We call pans and pots as panci (which always got auto-corrected into panic…) and frying pans as wajan. Basically, anything that can be heated on top of open fire (or even electrical stoves) are divided into two major categories: 1) Panci, which has more height; and 2) Wajan, which is flatter. Both can come with one, two, or no ears, and can be made from a variety of materials though mostly metal. We also called non-stick frying pans as teflon, because the first one to sell them in Indonesia is Teflon (the company), and the name, well, sticks. Other equipment includes dandang, which is a steamer, presto, which is a pressure cooker, and kompor, which means stove. The stove we use, especially in the cities, are mostly gas stove. The more modern houses start to use electric stoves, whilst the ones in villages, at least some of them, still use wood as their main fuel.
Things like wok, oven, microwave, and rice cooker are generally referred to with their original names, though they do have translated names (which doesn’t sound as nice so we opt not to use them). When I played ACNH though, I realized that Indonesians have different meaning for mixer. For us, mikser (read as mixer) refers to what they (the Japanese? The rest of the world? How would I know) call stand mixer. For the portable ones, we call them as mikser tangan. Whereas what they call as mixer, we call them as blender.
Containers itself are commonly called wadah, but this word is not just limited to food containers. For lunch boxes, on the other hand, we do have a specific word, which is tepak makan. If the time and context of conversation is right, you can simply say tepak. Be careful though, as the word tepak can also refer to pencil cases, which we call tepak pensil. Note that the ‘e’ in tepak is sounded like ‘e’ in ember (see my previous post about alphabet for further explanation), because if you read it as ‘e’ in elang, it would mean ‘right’ or ‘correct’ or ‘in-line’ in Javanese.
For cooking utensils, we have sutil, capitan, serok or saringan, and sendok sup, which are spatula, tongs, drainer, and ladle respectively. Other more specialized equipment and utensils are, for example, cobek and ulekan (mortar and pestle), parutan (grater), ayakan (sieve), cempal or tempal (kitchen mittens, though more often than not they’re only a pair of scrap cloths here), and tusuk sate (skewer). I’m pretty sure I miss some, especially ones that are only used here, but these are the ones I can think of now.
Oh, I almost forgot about the knives. Basically we call knives as pisau. We don’t really have specific terms for, say, chef’s knife or fillet knife or bread knife; everything sharp and knife-shaped is called pisau. So whether it’s for eating or cutting ingredients, they’re all called pisau. For cutting boards, we call them talenan.
Right, that’s all for my post today. If you're confused with my description, simply search in Google Images using the Indonesian terms and you should get an image of them (I really need to upped my descripting ability TwT).
Alright, review time (\^o^/)
Spoon = Sendok
Fork = Garpu
Chopsticks = Sumpit
Knife = Pisau
Plate = Piring
Bowl = Mangkok
Cup, mug = Gelas
Tea cup = Cangkir
Kettle = Teko
Bottle = Botol
Thermos = Termos
Pan, pot = Panci
Frying pan = Wajan
Steamer = Dandang or kukusan
Pressure cooker = Presto
Stove = Kompor
Stand mixer = Mikser
Mixer = Blender
Container = Wadah
Lunch box = Tepak makan
Spatula = Sutil
Tongs = Capitan
Drainer = Serok or saringan
Ladle = Sendok sup
Mortar and pestle = Cobek and ulekan
Grater = Parutan
Sieve = Ayakan
Cooking mittens = Cempal or tempal
Skewer = Tusuk sate
Toothpick = Tusuk gigi
Cutting board = Talenan
Thanks for reading. See you soon (hopefully with posts about food)~
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