Indonesia’s Everlasting Snacks

1.       Biskuit Gabin

Biskuit gabin or Indonesian hardtack is made from wheat flour, tapioca flour, margarine, salt, sugar, and milk powder.

Gabin has two main flavors: salty and sweet (milky). Gabin is usually eaten as the complement when drinking coffee or tea. People like to dip it into their coffee or tea or any other beverages. The texture will be a lot softer when it’s dipped.

Gabin

Nowadays, gabin comes with many flavors, not only salty and sweet. Furthermore, it’s also made as something more than just a biscuit. Indonesian people make lots of creative dishes using gabin that elaborate the plain taste of gabin while preserving its unique texture.

2.       Kerupuk

Kerupuk or keropok (in Malaysian language) is very widespread in Indonesia. You can find kerupuk at street vendors to megamalls in Indonesia. No wonder this snack is very popular, because it has crispy texture, various flavours, and pocket-friendly price :D. It’s usually eaten along with main dishes. Some Indonesians say: eating rice without kerupuk is like there’s something missing. However, I’m not really one of them. J

 

Kerupuk Putih (White Cracker)

Kerupuk itself means chip or cracker in Indonesian, so it’s too general when talking about the taste. There are many variety of kerupuk in Indonesia, such as:

a.       Kerupuk udang (prawn cracker)

Kerupuk udang are deep fried crackers made from starch and other ingredients that usually give the taste. It tastes savory and prawny, for sure.

b.      Kerupuk kulit

People of some regions in Indonesia called kerupuk kulit rambak or jangek. Kerupuk kulit is made of cow’s or bull’s skin and then seasoned with spices. After it’s cooked in water, it’s then dehydrated under the sun for 2-3 days. After dried, it’s then deep-fried until crispy and ready to be served and – absolutely - be eaten.

 

Kerupuk Kulit

c.       Kerupuk melarat

Kerupuk melarat or poor’s cracker is one of traditional cracker of Cirebon (a city in West Java) and nearby areas. This snack is habitually served as the complement of sambal asam (sour sauce). The best time to eat this cracker is on dry season. Besides appetizing, it also boosts people’s energy and spirit to work (I don’t know why, but that’s what people say :p maybe it’s kinda placebo effect :/).

 

Kerupuk Melarat 

Kerupuk melarat is made from tapioca flour and other ingredients. It comes with various colour, ranging from yellow, white, to green.

It’s considered healthy cracker because it’s not cooked with cooking oil, instead with hot sand which had been cleaned and filtered from any impurity beforehand. So, it’s good for those who’s suffering from coronary heart disease or hypertension or diet :p hehe.

d.      Kerupuk gendar or gendar is made from rice which had been cooked and seasoned. Sometimes, to give it stretchy texture, people mix it with tapioca flour.  

Kerupuk Gendar

3.       Amplang

Amplang is a traditional food from Indonesia. It’s like kerupuk, but it’s actually something different. It’s made mainly from fish meat and wheat flour. It tastes savory and fishy. The texture is crispy but a little soggier than regular crackers. 

Amplang

Myths and Facts of Indonesia

    1.     Indonesia is an Islamic Republic.

MYTH

Although Indonesia has the most Muslim population in the world, but the government system is not fully based on syariah or the Islamic law. It means it’s not an Islamic country. It’s a democratic republic. Nevertheless, the ideology and social norms in Indonesia are influenced by Islamic tradition. For example, although there’s no written rule to obligate women to wear hijab (except Province of Nangroe Aceh Darussalam), but a lot Muslimahs (Muslim women) in Indonesia wear it.

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    2.     Poverty in Indonesia is caused by the lack of natural resources.

MYTH

Indonesia is richly endowed with natural resources. The main cause of poverty in Indonesia is the lack of quality human resources.

    3.     Indonesia is the world’s 4^th most populous country.

FACT

Indonesia has over 238 million people.

  

   4.     The Indonesia’s economy is the world's 17^th largest economy by nominal GDP.

FACT

  

   5.     Indonesian is the mother tongue of most Indonesian people.

MYTH

In fact, 90 % of Indonesian people use 742 distinct indigenous languages, instead of Indonesian in everyday life. Nevertheless almost all Indonesian people understand Indonesian.

   6.     Bali is the only tourism object in Indonesia

MYTH

In fact, there are many choices of tourism objects in Indonesia. If you prefer to enjoy maritime beauty of Indonesia you can visit Bali, Raja Ampat in Province of West Papua, Manado, and many more. If you want feel a different side of Indonesia, you can try to enjoy jungle nuance to see orangutan in Kalimantan or Borneo Island. You can also visit Komodo Island in East Nusa Tenggara to see Komodo Dragon – which is been stated as one of NEW SEVEN NATURAL WONDERS - before your eyes.  But, if you’re bored with all those natural wonders, try the cultural aspects of Indonesia. There are 300 distinct native ethnicities in Indonesia. It means you can feel 300 different cultural wonders, such as the culinary, architectures, traditional music, traditional dance, handicraft, and so on.

Personal Pronouns

Personal pronouns in Indonesian have slightly differences to its counterpart in English. But, don’t worry, because the differences are not so tricky. Here are the personal pronouns in Indonesian:

     A.      Sort by English Pronouns

    B.      Sort by Order of Speakers

See, it’s not so hard to memorize those pronouns. There are several alternatives for “I”, which are: aku and gue/gua. But, never ever try to use gue/gua  to strangers or people who are older than you, because gue is considered as rude. 

Verbs

Like no other languages (that I know), In Indonesian, you don’t need to figure out how to change a verb into certain tenses. Because in Indonesian, there’s no such thing as tense. So, it can be said that verbs in Indonesian are ALMOST unchangeable, at least by tense. “almost” doesn’t mean “fully”. So, one thing that could change a verb is whether a sentence is a passive or active. But, at this time, we don’t discuss it yet.

Just like English verb, the meaning of Indonesian verb can change due to affix that modifies a verb. Commonly, an Indonesian verb needs affix to make them a “real” or meaningful word. For example, infinitive form of “belajar” (study(-ies)/studied/studying) is “ajar” (to study). But “ajar” can’t be used in common Indonesian sentence. So “ajar” can’t stand alone. But, some verbs don’t need any affix. For example, the infinitive form of “duduk” (sit(s)/sat/sitting) is also “duduk”(to sit). But, if you try to add affix, you’ll change the meaning. For example, men+duduk+i = “menduduki”, means occupy or sit on something. But, those conditions above are valid in formal form or written Indonesian. In fact, some verbs can both stand alone or not in informal form or speaking Indonesian. But, for now, try to learn only the formal side. Ok ?!

If you want to find an Indonesian verb in dictionary you have to know what’s the dictionary form or the infinitive form (kata dasar) of the verb. At this time we’ll try to memorize several Indonesian basic verbs. Here are:

note that the verbs which can't stand alone (No) actually can stand alone in spoken Indonesian, but it's gramatically incorrect.

The Basic Pattern of Simple Sentence

Just like English, to make an intelligible sentence in Indonesian needs at least two components, that is :
Verbal sentence: S + V
Nominal sentence: S + Adj

After that, we can add some “spices” to make it even more intelligible and communicative, such as object, complement, adverb, etc. So, it’s simple to learn Indonesian. Just like no other languages,  Indonesian language is very simple and easy to learn, especially for those who speak English, Spanish, Deutsch, and other language that using Latin alphabet.

Facts of Indonesian Language

-      Indonesian people call Indonesian Language as Bahasa Indonesia.

- Indonesian language - combined with other Malay Language Family -  is the 7th largest language with approximately 259 million speakers.

- If you've mastered Indonesian language, it's a lot easier to understand other Malay language family, such as Melayu (Malaysian language) and Bruneian language.

- In 2007, Indonesian became the 2nd official language in Vietnam.

- Indonesian is the 26th largest language from 250 languages in Wikipedia.org.

- Indonesian  is the 3rd largest language that is used in wordpress blog posts.

- The speakers of Indonesian can be found in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore,  the Netherlands, Suriname, East Timor, the Philippines, Australia, Saudi Arabia, New Caledonia, and the United States

- VOA chooses Bahasa Indonesia as one of the broadcasting language among other 51 languages.

- BBC preferences on Indonesian as one of its World Service 27 languages instead of Malay, despite United Kingdom colonial ties with Malaysia.
See : source

- Indonesian uses Latin script as the official alphabet.

- Indonesian used to be written in Malay-Arabic script (Jawi Script).