Come To Bogor, Come To The Original Flavor Of Indonesian Pickles

Nia S. Amira
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Indonesian is a melting pot of cuisine from its neighbor lands like those from China and India. It seems far away in other part of Asia, but our feeling is so close by gastric. Food and its elements are the form how human can elaborate the reci­pes from other part into their own taste and creating a new flavor without leaving the original of one or two of its ingredient due to the geographical reason of each land and later to suit local taste and conditions.

Indonesian-Dutch chow-chow is a mixed pickle original from East Indies (read: Indo­nesia) and traveled around the world thanks to the ship crews.

In Indonesia, we call pickle as Acar and Acar is to balancing the rich flavor of meat or fish and stimulate the appetite of some­one who do not have the mood of eating. Acar is still popular among the Indonesian and Dutch. Both people can accept the rec­ipe from Indonesia eventhough often use the tropical ingredients that are not com­mon in European meal, such as the use of candle nuts and lemon grass, but mostly both countries use vegetables like cabbage, carrots, beans-sprout, green beans and also cauliflower. People agree to make vary ac­cording to what is available in their fridge of market. Acar campur or mixed pickle is always with mustard that will give the bril­liant yellow for all the vegetables and sauce. Since Indonesia has natural color for mak­ing the vegetables goes to yellow, thus fresh turmeric is prefered to include. Acar Cam­pur is a sweet pickle with amount of sugar varies from a tablespoon to 5 tablespoon.