Instant Culture

A new supermarket opened in Banda Aceh and I went to check it out. There’s only one chain of supermarket operating here and it’s called Pante Pirak (silver beach). The drivers are always confused when I say, “I want to go to Pante Pirak” because there are like 5 Pante Pirak supermarkets and the street the biggest Pante Pirak is on is conveniently called Jalan Pante Pirak. So now, I always have to say, “I want to go to the Pante Pirak near…

Anyway, this new place is pretty big (we’re talking Aceh standards here, not Safeway or Whole Foods standards, but it is bigger than the Soviet Safeway on 17^th and Corcoran, for those of you who live in DC). In the store, there are about 2 aisles designated to mie instan, better known as instant noodle! There are packets and packets in red, green, and glittery packaging. But essentially, it’s all the same stuff - skinny curly noodle with a packet of seasoning and a packet of silicon-whatever to keep it dry (my Dad once mistaken the silicon-whatever as seasoning and mixed it into the soup. The soup became rather gelatinous but he still made me eat it!*)

Back to the mie instan. Indonesians LOVE, and I mean LOVE instant noodle. There’s a guy in my office who eats pretty much only instant noodle, even for breakfast. When driving around, there are many food carts that sell mie goreng (fried noodles), but they make the fried noodle out of packets of instant noodle! I had an interesting discussion with one of my teachers at the language school about the “instant culture” in Indonesia. She confessed that when cooking noodles for her family, instead of adding veggies and meat to regular noodles, she’ll prepare the veggies and meats but add it to packets of instant noodle. Her theory was that Indonesians are obsessed with instant stuff because it’s a status symbol. Another good example is Nescafé. When the archipelago produces some of the world’s best coffee beans, well-to-do people will prefer to drink instant Nescafé.

*Actually we both ate a couple of bites and realized something was wrong and dumped it out. That's what happens when mom leaves us alone for dinner.