India's Random Thoughts (and words) Ep 01.

This is a fun clip I made with my phone (sorry for the bad quality) in which I voiced out any words that came to my mind while matching them with my pet tortoise India's actions. Sorry for the strange accent and some unclear words, as I'm having the flu.

Money Report

Total money brought (excluding flazzcard): Rp. 575 000

Day 1 (in Jogja)

Rp. 5000: Indomie

- Flazzcard (Rp. 2000 something)

Rp. 20 000: Public bus to Borobudur

Rp. 50 000: Andong

Total: Rp. 75 000

Day 2:

Rp. 1000: Fixed the bike wheel.

Rp. 3000: Paid for bike park.

Rp. 3000: Drink

Total: Rp. 7000

Day 3:

Rp. 1500: sweet potato

Rp. 7000: Geblek and Gethuk

- Flazzcard: (Rp. 2000 something)

Rp. 15 000: egg roll

Rp. 10 000: ceriping

Rp. 50 000: lost

Total: 83 500

Day 4:

Rp. 10 000: Andong

Rp. 15 000: Public bus

- Flazzcard (around Rp. 2000 something)

Rp. 10 000: Public bus

Rp. 6000: Chicken noodle

Total: Rp. 41 000

Day 5:

Rp 10 500: Mi Letheg and lime juice

Rp. 40 000: Church offering

Total: Rp. 50 500

Day 6:

Rp. 10 000: Nasi bakar

Rp 8000: 2 portions of fried rice.

Missing: 52 000
Total pay for living cost: Rp. (around) 100 000

Left: Rp. 77 000

My Eksplorasi Private Project: Ketela

Ketela

Actually, this isn’t my original private project idea. I was interested with getuk, since the one shown to me in the peyek home industry. At that time, I didn’t know that the most known getuk is the snack version, not the main staple food. What caught my interest was that it just looks so unique, squishy, and appetizing, only, Kak Kukuh told me that it would be hard to find any information about getuk, as there are not that much sources about getuk around the village and in the market, so we moved the topic a step away, which is ketela, because getuk is made out of ketela.

I already received lots and lots of information about ketela from Pak Ceriping, from seeing his plantation, going to Rumah Ketela, and information from my observations and interviews in the market. At the same time, I bought some snacks made out of Ketela, which are getuk (I was surprised when I saw that the getuk is totally different from the one I saw in the village, as this is the first time I saw the snack version. Since then, I relized that there were many versions of getuk, so I didn’t ask the seller any further.

I’ll give you an introduction of what Ketela is. Ketela is basically another word for singkong/ cassava. It’s the root of the Cassava plant, and it’s normally used for food. The peeled skin is used as the cattle’s food.

The Ketela tree is multifunction, as villagers use the bark as firewood or planted again, the leaves as vegetables or if it’s too old, as goat’s food, and the roots (the cassava) could be used as food.

The first information I got about Ketela was from Pak Ceriping, who makes Ceriping out of Ketela. We saw a big pile of cassavas behind him as he sliced the cassava using machine, and he must finish slicing them all, and have them fried by his wife, or else they would not be good, although still edible.

Next we went to Pak Ceriping’s cassava farm, and there we saw a lot of cassava trees, and several papaya trees. We were allowed to help harvest the trees, and we helped/played cutting the cassavas off from the trees. It was pretty fun, although the earthworms scared me.

I got my next information from the market. I looked around for Ketela sellers, and I saw that there were plenty, but they were either busy with their customers or my friend who had the same topic as me already got them.

I found a vacant old woman named Ibu Sutia, 60 y.o, and has been selling in the market for 30 years. She not only sold cassava, but she sold vegetables too.

There were many types of cassava, ubi (sweet potato), and talas. Cassava are: Singkong mentega, telo Jendral (telo is the Javanese word for singkong and sweet potato), telo kuning, telo putih, and telo merah.  The cassavas are not precisely the colours mentioned above, but to differenciate them, the Javanese gave them their respective names. I didn’t get any information about what types of talas there were, I forgot to ask, but these are the types of ubi that I got: Ubi Kuning, Ubi Biru, and Sumbowo. I also got several receipes of snacks made out of Ketela, such as Geblek and Getuk.

I was running out of time as she had plenty of customers out of a sudden and they all bought their goods in large quantities, so off I went to one of the snack sellers.

These sellers (there were 2 woman) were Mbak Dah (55 y.o) and Mbak Yah (35 y.o)(both aren’t siblings) were more friendly than Bu Sutia, and I bought 1 geblek and 1 getuk. I was so surprised seeing the getuk, as it was totally different from the one I saw in the Peyek industry. Apparently, this is the snack version. I asked for other types of getuk but I saw and was told there were none. I then assumed that the one I saw in the home industry was the main staple food, Pak peyek did say that too :p.

I decided to buy geblek too, as I’m curious of how it looks like. It looks more like white chips.

I was told there were 3 types of getuk, Getuk Karet, Getuk Lindri, and Getuk Ubi Jalar. I didn’t know the name of the getuk that I bought. J

My next information came from Rumah Ketela, where the founder was Pak Ariswara Sutomo. He opened Rumah Ketela to show us how we can reduce our use of wheat, which we imported from various other countries, by cassavas and sweet potato. Importing wheat can cost up to 16 trillion, although most of the imported wheat will be made into instant noodle. One way to reduce the use of wheat is by not buying wheat flour (although I still buy them sometimes :p), as the less buyers, the more expensive wheat flour will be. A replacement for wheat flour is mocaf, or sometimes corn flour could be used, although the result won’t be as good as wheat flour. Like for example, cake, the ones made by wheat flour have smoother textures than the ones made by mocaf.  Another advantage of cassavas are they are gluten free, and some people must avoid eating gluten. Gluten could be found in wheat.

In the past, when Mount Merapi erupted, all our crops failed, but we still could survive by eating cassavas and sweet potato, as they grow underground, so they are protected, which shows that we actually can depend on ourselves, not on other countries for our main staple food. Cassava and sweet potatoes could be found everywhere in Indonesia, so it won’t be much of a trouble for the citizens to find them.

In Rumah Ketela, we were served with snacks on first arrival, which names most of us forgot. All of them were still warm (except the ones in containers) but for me, the most delicious is the purple one. We were also introduced to a new kind of root, Suwek, another type of edible root, papaya jam, a mixture of papaya and pineapple, which was put into the container when it was still hot so that it would be sterile, egg roll from suwek, which all of us (except me) tried to roll in the frying pan, 4 types of flour: mocaf, sweet potato, Suwek, and corn, and 2 types of ice cream: one from sweet potato and the other from corn.

They showed us how to make mocaf, and some facts about them. Mocaf is easy to keep, and they stand for a long time, starting from a month to 6 years.  Keeping wheat (flour too) is pretty difficult, as bugs often nest themselves there.

To make mocaf, they were washed, peeled, spread and dried, immersed for 3 days and 3 nights, and every 24 hours the water is changed. They were then fermented, dried again, then milled into powder by a machine called selem, and powered by gasoline.

I actually wanted to buy the corn flour, as I thought my mom never used it before, but after weighing the risks, I decided not to buy it. I bought an egg roll made out of Suwek instead.

We were then shown their vast garden of all kinds of root plants and some fruit plants. From all the information that I was given, the only thing that I remember is that there’s an itchy part on the talas plant and rainy seasons support the growth of the sweet potatoes. Now, I knew that there were 3 most known types of roots, ketela, ubi (sweet potato), and talas, but I didn’t know how to differenciate them. I didn’t really get a “full attention” answer, but from what I conclude from her answer was by looking at the plants.

Why isn’t Rumah Ketela really known? It's because they weren’t well advertised, they’re not even shown on TV.