Balinese Dishes

SINCE dining out is not a social custom on Bali, the visitor is not likely to experience real Balinese cooking unless invited into a Balinese home. About the only place to consistently experience the real thing are the night markets and 'warung'. In your homestay, walk your way into your hotel's kitchen and sample some homemade Balinese meals. Every household prepares dishes in different ways.

Balinese food is so hard to find because it's usually only prepared for hundreds of people on special occasions. Since coconut oil goes bad very quickly and refrigeration is limited, preparations for such perishable, difficult feast dishes as mebat and lawar are begun early in the morning, labored on through the dawn, and eaten fresh later in the morning.

The two or three meals the Balinese eat each day are almost identical - lots of boiled white rice supplemented by tiny fish, vegetables, peanuts, cucumbers, chilies, and minute portions of spiced meat, egg, or tempe. In inland areas, dried and salted fish is more common. In poorer areas, the rice is mixed with corn, cassava or sweet potatoes.

There are some Balinese specialties you should not miss. The island's most famous delicacy is babi guling (suckling pig roasted) on a spit and stuffed with red chilies, garlic, turmeric, ginger, aromatic leaves, and peppercorn. Sure, the hotel restaurants have a token babi guling on their menus as well, but the dish is so modified to suit sensitive Western palates as to render it unrecognizable.

An equally renowned Balinese specialty is bebek betutu (roast duck), which is slowly baked in banana leaves together with many different herbs and spices. The other one is bebek panggang (smoked duck) cooked very slowly in an earth oven - it has to be ordered in advance from restaurants.

Another favorite Balinese dish is lawar, a mixture of fresh pig's blood, raw flesh, and grated coconut in an obligatory spicy sauce. The best place to experience a whole range of authentic Balinese dishes including sate lilit made from minced prawns and fish, a delicious grilled marinated fish, and nasi kuning (yellow rice) often served at celebrations.