ranting and musing

If an adventurer were to travel to a different island every day in Indonesia, it would take them about 50 years to visit each one. When a country is populated by 237 million people, composed of at least a thousand ethnic groups, who speak no fewer than 700 languages – there can be no denying that it must be an amazing land of culinary promiscuity!

Sadly, the average inhabitant of this foody paradise lacks the resources to indulge in the vast wealth of delectable recipes. Impoverished and marginalized, they earn just enough to eat whatever is affordable on wages too meager to pay for something the tourists patronizingly blog about. I personally encountered such a reality during a 15 hour bus ride in Indonesia last summer.

Halfway through the unbearable journey, the bus made a scheduled stop so the passengers could eat their meal, which was included in the ticket price. Each of us were permitted one pitiful piece of chicken that undoubtedly suffered a life so filled with misery, that it’s best day was probably the day it was sacrificed for our consumption – thereby ending it’s agony. The “rice” resembled something that at one time may have actually been rice, and the soup looked and tasted remarkably similar to salty water.

I write this without smugness. That unpleasant dining experienced humbled me to the degree that I could no longer fully enjoy being seduced by exquisitely presented meals. From that day onward, I noticed a heightened sense of regret for those who could not share exceptional food with me – as I shared brilliantly unpretentious food with them.

By American standards my income classifies me as poor. But compared to most people in the world I am rich. While traveling to my wife’s’ native country, I learned what POOR really is. And I came to understand a culture through food in a manner that is far from glamorous. I’m appreciative for having had the chance to be taught by life, what could never be taught in school.