I now have a Balinese name … Putu.  I was given this name by my new friends and culinary guides, Nyoman and Ketut, because I am the firstborn in my family.  In Bali, the order of one’s birth is very important.  Firstborns are named Wayan, Gede (pronunced G’Day) or Putu. The second child is named Made (pronounced Mah-Day) or Kadek (Kah-dek).  The third child is Nyoman or Koman and the fourth child is called Ketut.  If there are five children, you start over again with Wayan/Gede/Putu.  These names are used for both men and women except for Putu and Koman which tend to be exclusively female names. 

After seven days in Bali, I’ve met 25 Nyomans, 2 Gedes, 4 Mades, 17 Wayans, 2 Komans and 5 Ketuts of both genders.  Apparently the second and fourth children (or the sixth and eighth!) are shy. I’m the only Putu I know.  Because of the obvious confusion, some people are called by nicknames.  The majority, however, go by their birth order name so if I can’t remember someone’s name, I’ve got a pretty good chance of getting it right if I call them Nyoman or Wayan.

Nyoman and his wife Ketut

Today, thanks to Nyoman and Ketut, a husband/wife team that run a small warung (restaurant) down the street from me, I had a grand culinary adventure that was peppered with a lot of cultural education.  At the suggestion of some friends, instead of taking a commercial/professional cooking class, I opted to have Nyoman and Ketut teach me to cook Balinese food.  We struck the agreement yesterday afternoon over a delicious chicken curry lunch and this morning I showed up at 8:30 in front of their warung. 

I thought we had agreed that I would accompany Nyoman, the husband, to the market to buy the food. Apparently we had a bit of a miscommunication, though, because Nyoman and I went to the post office and ran a couple of other errands he needed but we didn’t go to the market.  After the errands, we sat in his warung for 30 minutes or more having wonderful conversation about Balinese Hinduism and the social climate in Bali, but no market visit.  Sometimes it’s best to just go with the flow so that’s what I did.  Afterall, I’m on Bali time. 

At 9:30, Nyoman’s wife, Ketut, showed up with many bags full of goodies from the market.  She divided them into what was needed for the restaurant and what we needed for our cooking class.  What was “needed” for our cooking class was enough to feed 10 armies … or in this case, Nyoman’s family. I suspected as much yesterday when Nyoman figured the going rate for his services should be 200,000 rupiah (about $20 US) … which was actually more than several of the “professional courses” offered in Ubud. We modified the menu and negotiated a price of 130,000 ($13 US).  Nyoman tried to tell me that this was just the price of the food alone, but given that I eat out very well here for less than $6 per day (all at restaurants), his story didn’t fly with me.  Still, I figured I was paying for the experience as well as his expertise so I certainly didn’t begrudge him the extra money.  

This is a tricky area because few prices in Bali are fixed and understandably all Balinese want to make the best bargain for themselves as possible.  If you don’t know your market, you will certainly be overcharged.  I’ve just decided not to take it personally when someone tries to overcharge me.  Otherwise, I would just be in a huff all the time. 

Nyoman had suggested we cook at his house because the kitchen was much larger than in the warung so we hopped on his motorbike with about 10 pounds of food in a very large bag and zipped off.  We hadn’t discussed where he lived and I had assumed he was local.  It turns out that he lives in a village about 45 minutes outside of Ubud so I got some lovely views of the Balinese countryside en route. Click here to see a glimpse of the Balinese countryside.

Gede's Offerings

 In lieu of a car, most Balinese own one or more motorbikes so most Balinese homes have a little driveway-like ramp at the entrance to their compound.  Nyoman and I pulled up the ramp into his compound and I got to meet his lovely family. His oldest brother, Gede, had just finished making beautiful offerings (the first I’d ever seen that contained coffee!) that he was about to deliver to each of the family temples inside the family temple (I checked again with the family today and am still told that both the pillar-type structures and the area containing them all share the same name of “temple” so I guess you’ll just have to be confused along with me).  Gede speaks almost perfect English and we had a very nice chat about offerings. (I’m still researching that topic and plan to write about them soon when I feel I’m better educated).  I met Nyoman’s father, Wayan, who seemed to understand a lot of English and his other older brother, Kadek, who told me he is planning to move to the US in 6 months. Nyoman’s mother, Made, grandfather, Wayan and grandmother, also Wayan, were there as well.  

Kadek with "THE CHICKEN"

Yesterday, we had discussed the menu - one chicken dish, one vegetable dish and a third dish that I was unclear about. Nyoman announced upon our arrival that he had not yet bought the chicken and that he was sending his brother, Kadek, to get it.  Ok, no big deal, I thought, envisioning a styrofoam tray with several boneless skinless chicken breasts wrapped in plastic - the way I’ve always bought chicken.  Ten minutes later when Kadek returned, it became a big deal.  He held a live chicken in his hands.  I shouldn’t have been surprised. I knew the day would come in my Asian adventure when I would come face to face with a live animal that was about to become my meal. I just hadn’t expected that day to arrive so soon.

Disassociating from the source of meat seems to be only an American trait and a newly acquired one at that.  Afterall, my grandmother used to kill her own chickens for dinner.  

I had never encountered it though and immediately began a very rapid-fire conversation with my conscience that in a nutshell went something like this: “You eat chicken so you ought to see where it comes from. Get over your illusion that it’s just ‘born’ on a little styrofoam tray at the grocery. I wonder if it’s too late to opt for a full vegetarian menu? Even if you do, they’re going to kill it anyway for dinner tonight. But I don’t want to watch it die. Maybe I could turn my head. No, you owe it to the chicken to see what happens.”   I owe it to the chicken????!!!  Time to get out of my head!  

I made peace with the inevitable (at least as best I could) by adopting the Native American tradition of thanking the chicken for its sacrifice and nourishment. I did this aloud when I thought no one was around … and was teased mercilessly by Nyoman who had been just around the corner the whole time.  That’s ok. I felt as good as I could about the chicken’s impending doom. 

Nyoman chopping up the jackfruit

Nonetheless, my stomach was knotting up on behalf of the poor chicken as I saw Nyoman sharpening the knives.  The knives made long, drawn out sounds as he scraped them across the sharpening stone. I looked at the chicken who sat on the bare earth with her feet tied together so she couldn’t run away.  She seemed pretty calm.  I wondered if she knew this wasn’t looking good for her.   Nyoman approached with the newly sharpened butcher knives.  My body tensed up as he walked toward the chicken.  Oh no!  Is it going to be awful to watch? My heart was racing! And then Nyoman walked past the chicken, grabbed a large unfamiliar vegetable called a jackfruit and began hacking away.  Whew!  

 At this point, we started peeling and chopping all the ingredients and my mind was taken off the chicken. There was garlic, ginger,  small onions that resembled garlic, two other ginger-type roots called isen and kuynyit, the longest green beans I’d ever seen (about 24” long!), jackfruit which seemed to have the texture that was both like a squash and a mushroom and tiny green chilis that looked so cute and innocent I knew they’d be deadly.  This was a full family project.  All three brothers as well as Nyoman’s father and grandfather chopped and peeled.  I helped out for a bit until we determined that my mincing skills were not up to par and that I might lose a finger if I continued my attempts in the Balinese cutting style.

(left to right) Kadek, 3 neighbor children, Grandpa Wayan, Father Wayan & Nyoman

We sat on a tile floor with a woven bamboo mat for a “table cloth” and a 5” think cross-section of a tree for a cutting board. The women were about 20 feet away in the actual kitchen - an earthen-floored room with a live fire in a concrete block for an oven, several cooking pots on top of the fire and a gas-fired wok.  When the men would finish chopping something, it was usually delivered to the kitchen to be boiled by the women  in the oil-filled wok. The delicious aroma of sauteed onion, ginger, garlic and chilies filled the air.  As there was a plethora of cooks and the action was split between the outside cutting room and the tiny kitchen several meters away, I abandoned any attempt to actually cook in my “cooking class.” With no regrets, I picked up the camera instead which freed me to dart back and forth between the two action-filled areas. 

Grandmother Wayan offering me a fried rice treat

Although there was no chance of me withering away, Wayan-the-grandmother kept filling my hands with food (3 different kinds of fried rice treats and 2 oranges) while the main meal was being prepared.  So grandmother’s are the same the world over … they love you through your tummy.      

At some point during all the commotion, the chicken met her doom and I didn’t even know it.  I’d like to think that, knowing my squeamishness about the situation, my sweet Balinese hosts deliberately sacrificed her away from my virgin eyes.  Papa Wayan brought her to me, dead, and indicated that I might want to watch the rest of the process.  I was most grateful for his consideration. 

After the chicken was washed in boiling water and plucked, it began to resemble an edible product with which I was more familiar and comfortable.  Mmmmm … I was really hungry and the thought of eating chicken no longer turned my stomach.  

Kadek skewering the chicken for roasting

Even with 8 people participating in the preparation, it took 3 hours to make the meal.  Several times, Gede lead me away from the food preparation to show me around the family compound, including an in depth tour and explanation of the family temple and the different gods honored there. I discovered that he’s incredibly artistic as he showed me elaborate offerings that he had made as well as a portrait a friend painted of him doing Balinese dance.

Gede and his super fancy offering ... for sale in his basket gallery!

Finally the meal was ready! Apparently, chairs don’t exist for this family so we instead of gathering around the table, we all hopped up right on top of the table, sat cross legged and ate our meal in the traditional Balinese fashion … with our hands.  It was spicy, as Nyoman had warned me traditional Balinese food would be, but it was amazing!  They all almost fell off the table laughing as I bit into a chili and tears involuntarily rolled down my face.  

As I predicted, the food I paid for was enough to feed us all with enough leftovers for everyone’s dinner tonight and at least as many ingredients for some other dish (or 5!) tomorrow, but I had gotten more than my money’s worth in experience and interaction with this lovely Balinese family.  

Your Putu eating Balinese style

I was invited to accompany the family to an important ceremony next week called Galungan Kuningan.  I hope that actually comes to fruition.  In the meantime, Kadek and are I going to start trading English for Indonesian lessons on Friday.  I thoroughly enjoyed my afternoon with these delightful people and have a feeling this isn’t the last you’ll hear of them.  Click here to see a video of my \”cooking class.\”

Additional photos for this and other blog entries can be found on the “Photos of Her Adventure” page of this blog.