Rice, always a subject of great passion, is critical to the
eating experience on Bali: the romance of rice dates back
at least 2,000 years on the fertile, fecund island of the
gods. The Balinese cultivate and eat several different
types of rice: traditional white Bali rice, “new,”
green revolution, modern white rice, a type of dry rice (padi
gaga) grown in the mountains, ketan (white, sticky glutinous
rice), barak (glutinous red rice), and injin (glutinous black
rice). Black glutinous rice is used to make cakes and
puddings: the short round grains are black on the outside
but white in the center. Bali has a varied, complex
vocabulary for rice, reflecting its importance as both food
and ceremonial ingredient. Sacred upland lakes and flowing
mountain rivers water the precious rice fields downstream
in absentia: local district subak cooperatives coordinate
the planting schedule and distribute, allot, and channel the
water supply through an ancient canal and dam driven irrigation
system. Padi rice is rice on the stalk growing in the
field (the English word “paddy” comes from padi),
gabah is unmilled rice that has been separated from the stems,
and beras (or baas) is milled, ready for the pot, uncooked
rice. Traditional, old-style, short-grain Balinese white
rice (padi Bali)--grown from time immemorial--has now largely
been replaced by fast-growing, high-yield, disease and insect-resistant,
commercial crop strains of “new” or “miracle”
dwarf rice introduced by the government in the 1970s to feed
Indonesia’s burgeoning population. Fussy, finicky,
opinionated, Zagat-critic connoisseurs of rice, the Balinese
still universally dislike and reject the taste and quality
of new rice-and strongly prefer to eat their (now much more
expensive) aeons-old strain of flavor-rich, traditional padi
Bali.
Rice, religion, and the gods are inexorably intertwined on
Bali. Bali’s multi-dimensional, ever-pregnant
rice fields produce reliable natural supplies of red, black,
and white rice: in order to have rice offerings corresponding
to each of the four sacred colors and directions, the Balinese
generate their own strain of delinquent yellow rice (nasi
kuning) by dying white rice grains with turmeric. Nasi
kuning, a typical Balinese ceremonial dish, is cooked in and
embellished with lightly seasoned coconut milk or cream, butter,
and chicken stock with cloves, salam leaf, pandanus leaf,
lemon grass, turmeric water, and laos (greater galangal).
Hoary basil (kemangi) is added to yellow rice for special
occasions, such as the day after Saraswati Day. Festive
nasi kuning is in high demand in order to make ritually required
offerings during the ceremonial period of Kuningan.
Served in a decorative, mountain-peak shaped cone crowned
with a banana leaf cap, it is prepared to both please and
to represent the gods (who reside at the summit of Bali’s
most sacred mountain, Gunung Agung). It is very Balinese
to eat a conical-shaped dome of yellow rice with green beans
cooked with coconut cream, chilli, palm sugar, and shrimp
paste.
The crucial role that rice plays can be gauged by the amount
of religious importance and the diversity and number of rituals,
offerings, and temple ceremonies--accompanying each stage
of the complex cultivation and irrigation process. Rice
thrives in the garden of the gods as the gift of the goddess
of rice, Dewi Sri, the most widely worshipped and beloved
deity on the island. Dewi Sri is a potent symbol of
fertility, protectress of the rice fields, and guardian of
rice barns: she is the favourite manifestation of God amongst
the Balinese. In every traditional family compound,
there will be an elevated, bow-roofed granary near the kitchen
called a lumbung (built off the ground on posts to deter rodents)
with a storage area for rice (and rice-related offerings):
this rice barn is the house of Dewi Sri. The growth,
preparation and consumption of rice in Bali gives rise to
a lovingly crafted network of bamboo or stone rice field shrines
and a lifestyle of thankful daily prayers and offerings to
the life-giving rice goddess: every face in Bali lights up
with joy at the mention of her name. At important times
in the rice cultivation cycle, small, symbolic, doll-like,
rice stalk images of Dewi Sri are fashioned in the rice fields
in the shape of two triangles with a pinched waist, called
a Cili. In every elaborately engineered and irrigated
rice field, there is at least one shrine for her, and every
six months there is a special rice day for Dewi Sri.
White rice is sacred, secular, and social currency on Bali:
it forms the centerpiece and the basis of every meal on the
island of the gods. Rice is synonymous with food: nasi,
which means cooked rice, also means food or “meal.”
All government employees are given a segment of their salaries
in rice: each civil servant receives an allowance of 10kg
of raw rice per month (20 kg if married, and an extra 10kg
for each child up to a maximum of three, totalling 50kg per
family per month). The Balinese prefer steamed rice
(nasi kukus) over boiled rice (nasi jakan), typically presented
on tourist plates in plump, attractive, cup-shaped round mounds.
Balinese meals consist of generous portions of life-sustaining
white rice (nasi putih) accompanied by token amounts of two
or three side dishes like fish, meat, poultry, vegetables,
or soybean products. As a result, average rice consumption
on Bali approaches a high 0.5 kilograms of uncooked rice per
person per day. In poorer or mountainous parts of Bali,
where rice is not available, cassava or taro is substituted.
Leftover white rice is reinvented as fried rice (nasi goreng),
popularly eaten throughout both Bali and Indonesia as a main
course or as an accompaniment. Although it is infrequently
prepared at home, it is a very popular restaurant treat for
the Balinese. It includes such ingredients as pork,
chicken, prawns, shallots, eggs, red chillies, garlic, ginger
root, carrots, cabbage and mushrooms, often garnished with
a fried egg on top, a chicken saté stick on the side,
sliced cucumber, crisp-fried onions, and shrimp crackers.
If the rice bowl is full, the people do not starve: the elaborate
design and elegance of Bali’s rice terraces rivals that
of the great gardens of the world (the challenging British
maze, Japanese topiary in Kyoto, the palace at Versailles),
but they were not created for aesthetics alone. Carefully
cut into the countryside like multifaceted jewels, the luminescent,
glistening green rice paddies are the critical, ever-present,
essential life blood of the grateful people of Bali.
