More on Food

I haven't written about food for awhile.

There is this little meat shop name Blangrakal not far from my office that stocks western food products. The owner keeps a clip board and adds to the list as customers request different products. Of course, for this service, he charges US (if not higher) prices for the stuff. The prices have gone up even more as the Rupiah has been losing its value. A can of S&W Red Kidney Beans was priced at Rp. 18000 last week (about $1.80). A box of Barilla pasta is about $3, Kraft Italian Dressing is $3.80. I've never lived in a place where inflation was a huge problem. I remember in Olney's Econ 1 learning about inflation and example she gave was that businesses spent more money on updating its menu constantly to adjust to inflation. I can really see it here. The menu in restaurants are always covered with little white stickers - with new and higher prices. Back to the kidney beans, to avoid paying twice as what I'd pay at Safeway, I ordered an entire case of 24 cans from Medan for about $1.20 per can. That will last me awhile.

Indonesians, with Acehnese in particular, love sweet stuff. They put gula (sugar) in just about everything. The most common condiment here is kecap manis - it's this thick sweet soy sauce with chili in it. They put it over plain rice and just about everything else. Traditional Acehnese coffee is black with LOTS of sugar or condensed milk. I have also been told that the Sprite in Indonesia has 4 times the sugar as a can of US Sprite.