The Fully-Imported Local Delicacy

I didn't know when I set off for a tiny village near Banjarmasin in Indonesia that I was going to be the first westerner to visit in nearly twenty years.

I’d just seen a thin line on my map and wondered where it led. Nor did I know that my impromptu arrival would coincide with the village’s annual Rice Harvest festival, the most important event on the settlements not-so-busy social calendar. I just squeezed into a beat-up minivan and let it take me as far as it could.

The first inkling I got that I was ‘special’ was when I stepped out of the van and everyone in the village stopped what they were doing and stared at me. It was confirmed when the only English speaker in town latched on to me and took me on a tour of the village. I was shown the women threshing rice with their feet. Young guys lugging the bags of rice to a thatched hut ‘warehouse.’ And fisherman dragging their wooden boats up on the black sandy beach. Crowds gathered wherever I stopped.

I’d just seen news footage on the satellite TV in my room of the Queen touring the Jaguar factory in Coventry so I took my cues from what she had done. I shook hands. I asked questions. And I nodded my head as if I knew what was being said. When someone handed me a piece of fruit, the Indonesia equivalent of a posy of flowers, I passed them immediately to the young English speaker accompanying me.

My royal tour ended at the village soccer pitch. A make shift stage had been erected for the festival and a Dangdut band were playing to celebrate. Dangdut is a form of Indonesian pop music that is a mix of Indian, Arabic and Malay folk music. Of late it has incorporated elements of Latin, reggae and hip-hop music. Before the band started I was taken on to the stage and introduced to the crowd. They cheered and clapped politely before the young guys huddled up the front barracked for me to get off. The band featured a couple of saucy female singers in glittering shirt skirts. I was blocking the view.

After the show I was escorted to the chief’s house for a Rice Harvest feast. I was to be the guest of honour and my mouth immediately began to water. My tour earlier in the day had taken me through the market where the local fisherman displayed the bounty they’d just dragged from the sea. The prawns as big as cats had particularly caught my eye.

The chief sat at the head of the table. I sat directly opposite. Plates groaning under the weight of the above-mentioned prawns were placed in front of everyone except me. I was bought a special plate covered with a tin lid. It was removed with a royal flourish to reveal my meal. A can of corn beef. Imported from Argentina.

I learned then that everyone puts a different value on things. When prawns the size of domestic pets are commonplace a can of reconstituted South American beef represents the height of sophisticated dining.

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