Balinese Food. Vivienne Kruger

      Human nourishment can be divided into four basic food categories according to source: ocean, air, land and field. The Balinese eat all as they pray to the goddess of rice, Dewi Sri, for the ongoing gift of life-sustaining food for their island. In China, there is a saying that the people will “eat anything with wings except an airplane, and anything with four legs except a table.” China’s cooks routinely prepare whatever is available locally, whether for upscale Imperial-style banquet halls or open-air street markets and stalls: braised bear paw (the more tender left paw is preferred), snake meat stir-fried with civet cat, deep-fried crispy scorpion, pangolin (an endangered species) stew, roast dog meat and free-range field rat kebabs!

      The meats and ingredients may differ but the sentiment is much the same in Bali. A high Brahman priest told resident cultural observer Miguel Covarrubias in the 1930s that the Balinese are only prohibited from eating “human flesh, tigers, monkeys, dogs, crocodiles, mice, snakes, frogs, certain poisonous fish, leeches, stinging insects, crows, eagles, owls, and birds with moustaches.” Covarrubias also noted that while the Balinese eat chicken, duck, pork and, more rarely, beef and buffalo, they are fond of “stranger foods” like dragonflies (capung), crickets, flying ants and bee larvae.

      Common threads run through all of Balinese cuisine but different regional styles and usable food resources are found in every corner of the island. Traditional Balinese foods include such natural elements as dragonflies, baby bees, coconut tree larvae, grilled young bamboo, young bamboo soup, young tree trunk soup, sweet and sour frog, rice field eels in banana leaf, fried rice field snails, nasi sela (rice mixed with sweet potato), nasi jagung (rice mixed with corn) and rock-hard taop nuts. Such delicacies leave an indelible impression on young Balinese children who crave them in adulthood, especially during prolonged absences from their traditional villages.

      In western Bali, in particular, informal village foods continue to thrive. Dragonflies are a favorite delicacy although they are difficult and time-consuming to catch as they are continually on the wing, landing only briefly on rice stalks. Children hunt dragonflies in the fields using long poles called kayu panjang (kayu is wood or tree and panjang long), the ends smeared with sticky sap as a trap. They pull the wings off, pierce the dragonfly bodies live on a stick, roast and eat them. At home, the bodies are grilled or deep-fried in coconut oil with spices and vegetables.

      The villagers of Tengkudak in Tabanan regency, near Mt Batukaru, like everything emanating from the rice fields, from grasshoppers to dragonflies, eels and live baby bees. These villagers also have their own “dragonfly with cassava” recipe called Rempeyek (cracker) capung (dragonfly). The dragonflies are captured in the rice fields using a three-tiered device. A long, firm coconut leaf spine is inserted into a bamboo tube handle and sticky sap collected from a jackfruit or frangipani tree is smeared on the tip. The flying prey become irrevocably fixed to the sap of the magical hunting wand when they touch it. Many more practical Balinese sidestep the hard-to-make bamboo handle and substitute a large easy-to-obtain banana leaf spine instead. They attach the coconut leaf spine to the top of the banana leaf spine with sticky sap, thus attaining the desired sky-level height to catch dragonflies on the wing. The banana leaf handle is simply thrown away afterwards. Utilizing only the bodies, not the wings, the requisitioned dragonflies are crushed using a stone mortar (batu base) and pestle, while their co-ingredient, cassava, is scraped