We had a great time on Bali, eating mainly from the resort where we stayed. The food was good, a little overpriced, but still full of spices and satisfying. I don’t remember many of the meals at the resort, but I do remember how delicious the food was when we left the tourist areas. We did manage to get a car to drive us around and we had some great food, at about 10% of the price we were paying back at the resort.
We cook Indonesian food now and then, but because it is so rice heavy and there are not a lot of vegetables, it isn’t always at the top of our cooking list. I thought I’d use this book to get a little more information about the foods we tried and foods we didn’t know about during our visit.
This cookbook is pretty barebones. There is a little background information in the beginning about the food culture of Indonesia, and the recipes are a sampling of the different kinds of foods you might find on various islands from different parts of the country.
I was hoping for a little more detail, but I think this book is part of some kind of culinary survey series and there isn’t much other than the recipes and concise and sometimes abbreviated directions.
Still, it was enough to make me hungry, and I guess that is what all cookbooks should strive to do. This weekend or next I’ll try out some of their recipes and see how it goes. We’ve still got some ingredients left over from cooking Malaysian food, and there are some similarities.
Overall I thought this book is worth picking up as an introduction to the cuisine, but I’m guessing there are better options out there.
Next I’m going back to Sci-Fi with John Scalzi’s The Collapsing Empire.
