pertiwiratih: DISCOVER THE CULTURE THROUGH GASTRONOMY

We all love eating, we eat what people eat, we eat what people like, but of course people have different taste of food that they love to be eat when it depends on where are they live and how is their habit. In these days, food is not just a food of course it is a premier need of a human being, food is very close to people’s life they have breakfast in the morning, a lunch in the afternoon, a diner in the evening, even a supper after 10 pm. Food, it becomes more and more important for the social-life.

As they said that gastronomy is art of selecting, preparing, serving, and enjoying fine food. Gastronomy is the art or science of good eating[1]^.Gastronomy is a culinary customs or style[2]^.As Scarpato (2000) shows, the original definition of gastronomy has broadened in recent years and the concept now refers to “reflective eating and cooking as well as food preparation, production and presentation in general, maintaining the association with excellence”[3]

Gastronomy Attracts People to Travel

Now, to travel around the world to have the food experience from the origin country or just go to the specific restaurants to have the authentic food from all over the world is become very popular. The increasing of world food and world travel popularity has inspired researchers to study the relations between food and tourism, the role of food as a tourist attraction ( Hall (2003), Hjalager and Richards (2002), Joppe (2003), Cohen (1996), Wood (2001 ), Bessière (1998) and also the limits of its attraction (Cohen and Aveili, 2004)[4].

For tourists, the satisfaction of nutritional needs is increasingly becoming a culinary-gastronomic experience (Meler and Cerovic, 2003) with some tourists such as those originating from Hong Kong quoting sampling local food as their most important activity (Law et Al, 2004)[5]. Images of food are used by tourism destinations as markers of their cultural identity (Fronchet, 2003) and food has been shown to have good potential to enhance sustainability of tourism destinations (du Rand, 2003)[6].

To understand who are the people we must understand what they eat, in this case this article will talk about what will be surprising the foreigner in French traditional market especially those who come from Asia, what are missing in this market, the impression and the sensation of this market and we will compare it with the market from our country it is Indonesia.

Feel So French in Marché Jardin des Plantes, Angers

This observation takes place in Marché Jardin des Plantes in Angers, it opens every Saturday and Sunday morning. As a normal market, we can see how the people meet each other whether in the transaction between sellers and the customers, or between the customers, they are coming with their friends or their family to discover the food in this market . But, if we look around, take some moments to observe, take some minutes to realize what does exist around us, we can feel a very warm ambiance in this market. It is amazing to feel the passion both of the sellers and the customers they seem feel so happy to be there.

Here, in this market we can feel the authentic atmosphere of France, some influence from Maghreb country, others European countries, and Asia countries where some of the population is from there. As in other countries, France also has so many cross-culture, might be we cannot find the ingredients of Halal food here, or ingredients of Asian food as rice or noodles, but we can find Asian street food and it is “fresh from the oven!” such as nuilles crevets, nuilles nature, riz cantonaise, dim sum, they are very typically Asian and so many other things.

Do not be worried for the favorite local specialty because there are so many stands of crêpes, galettes, gaufres, beignets, and of course sandwiches. They serve it in nuttella or just plaine.

They have churros as well which is sometimes referred as a Spanish doughnut, is a fried-dough pastry common as a snacks and it is very popular in French especially when the Christmas is coming they also have a Marché de Noël where all the traditional food come up.

Here we find so many different types chesses and creams since cheese is France authentic food. Actually in traditional France have 350 until 400 different types of chesses it is huge, and those products are covered by Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) and French Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée (AOC) system[7]. Some popular French chesses such as camembert, brie de meaux, roquefort, boursin reblochon, munster, pont l'évêque, époisses, and chèvre tomme de savoie. They are so delicious for French people in contras it is a bit hard for the Asian but there is nothing wrong to try something new.

Who can avoid the tasty French saucisson? Varieties of thick, dry cured sausage originally France. Normally pork-base, or a combination of pork and other meats, salty taste, shocking in the first bite but it is quite tasty actually. They have pork saucisson, canard that is duck, kangaroo, 5 baies it is mixture of the herbs, etc.

If we go little further, we have already knew that France has rich culture it reflected by its amazing historical gastronomy even in these days they have over 1000 “grandes toques” – top chefs[8] and they are not just staying in France they spread up all over the world. France is a leading tourism destination and is recognized worldwide as having a strong food culture[9] and France government promotes French not just because of the beautiful Eiffel Tower, the artistic Louvre Museum, or historical of Versailles, they put gastronomy as a key of their tourism to attract the tourists in their travel experience. Namely their local products can be sold on farm the chesses, the creams, their spectacular wines, and their local culinary specialities they offer in their restaurant menu. In November 2010, UNESCO added French gastronomy on the prestigious lists of the world's "Intangible Cultural Heritage"[10].

Different Ambience from Indonesia

So is in Indonesia, they also have plenty of traditional market where they offer meats, vegetables, eggs, herbs, and spices cheaper than in supermarket that is why Indonesian women love to shop in the market. Traditional markets in Indonesia are not all the same it depends on every region even every city. They have 5 religions the major is Muslim, followed by Catholic, Protestant, Buddhist, and Hindus, by those religions they have different culture in eating. People in Java are most Muslim so, in their traditional market they do not have any pork, in contrast they have many muttons, of course chickens, beefs, and seafood. They can only find pork in some particulars supermarkets. In contras, in other regions where the most of inhabitant is non-Muslim they have plenty stands of pork in their traditional market.

That is for the meats, the other Indonesian popular side dish is soy food such as tempe and tofu they are the most wanted fresh food in traditional market.

Those are real Indonesian food and we can say thanks to these foods for uniting the Indonesian because everybody is able to eat those soy foods without any religious prohibition and for an addition it is healthy. Based on these fermentation soy food can make so many creation of food i.e. tempe balado, tempe mendoan, tempe bacem, tahu goreng, tahu isi and so on.

Indonesian people love spicy food, and they have numerous types of chili, they use chili almost in every recipes and do not ask about Indonesian sauces specialities, there are plenty of sambal that is such a must-have condiment in our dine time, it based on chili indeed. When the culinary travel experience pops up every where and it becomes a magnet to attract tourists in Indonesia tourism industry and have to adapt the taste of local food especially for Western tourists because they do not use to eat our shocking spicy food.

To discover our culture in Indonesia is quite easy come to our traditional market and enjoy our street foods. We also often create some traditional street food culinary event not only to attract the domestic or foreign tourist but also to remind the past generation about our traditional culinary and to introduce the young generation that these traditional foods do exist and we should preserve it as part of our culture.

Gastronomy as Part of Our Life

Food and local gastronomy really play role in tourism industry to attract tourists from all over the world. France is well known worldwide in having a strong and rich food culture and their gastronomy is the key to run their tourism industry to attract tourists to have food travel experience. Likewise Indonesia, they start to discover and preserve their authentic food well known as Nusantara Culinary and developing to attract the attention of another country to come and visit Indonesia and have a new culinary experience. Indonesia have rich different culture within their regions, and every region has their speciality which is has a big relation with their daily life, in what weather do they live, what religion do they believe, and those become the strength of the country to show their identity to the world.

Normally every market in the world has the same vision: to fulfill the needs of their inhabitant of course they have a bunch of different things for example in France there are a lot of chesses and breads because the population having it as their daily meal. Indonesia traditional markets have a lot of rices and roots as their main daily meal and the big different thing between the traditional market in France and in Indonesia is we never see people do bargaining in France market to have some discounts which is common in Indonesia. Because in the past bargaining is a part of Indonesian daily life as they barter for daily good and even after they have the currency they still bring that habit in their daily life in traditional market not just to get a nice price but they do it because for some of them just love it.

To sum up, gastronomy is a part of our daily life where much influenced of our culture and how we prepare, produce and present the food in beautiful way to make society feel a happiness through an amazing impression and unforgettable sensation of their food.

Putu Ratih Pertiwi

References

Gergaud, Olivier., Smeets, Valérie., and Warzynski, Frédéric., Working Paper: Stars War in French Gastronomy: Prestige of Restaurants and Chefs’ Careers, 2010.

Barkat, Sheila Matson., and Vermignon, Vincent., Gastronomy Tourism : A comparative study of Two FrenchRegions : Brittany and La Martinique, 2006.

Bianchini, Annik., French Food: French Gastronomic Meal Included On World Immaterial Heritage List in France Diplomatie http://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/en/france/french-society/way-of-life/french-food/article/french-gastronomic-meal-included, retrieving 5 March 2013

List of French Chesses, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_French_cheeses, retrieving 5 March 2013

Merriam Webster Online Dictionary, Gastronomy-Definition http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gastronomy, retrieving 4 March 2012

[1] Merriam Webster Online Dictionary, Gastronomy-Definition http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gastronomy, retrieving 4 March 2012

[2] Merriam Webster Online Dictionary, Gastronomy-Definition http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gastronomy, retrieving 4 March 2012

[3] Sheila Matson Barkat and Vincent Vermignon, Gastronomy Tourism : A comparative study of Two French