Translating Home in Asian Groceries

Sometimes it's just nice to not feel overwhelmed in front of a rack of foreign vegetables. In this newsletter, I write about borders and home I find in the grocery aisle.

This is the monthly edition of Dapur Saraswati — a newsletter from Prinka Saraswati, which you can read about here. If you like it and want more like it in your inbox, consider subscribing. Read last month’s newsletter here . For more recipes, follow Dapur Saraswati on Instagram.

Since last year, moving and changes are no longer a strange idea to me. I was supposed to be in USA for only 4 months, but because Indonesian borders were only opened under some unclear administration, I somehow made my way to stay for almost a year. My yellow suitcase carried 23 kilograms of my life; summer clothes, one linen jacket, and 1 kilogram of Bumbu Pecel from my mother.

A prominent instant bumbu (spice mix) used in many households in Indonesia, Bamboe, sold on a rack in an Asian store in Florida, USA.

I have never been far from home for so long. So last year was my first time. I was not so excited because I wasn’t traveling, doing a student exchange, or residency; those temporary travels. When you travel, you know that your experience will be temporary and you know that at some point, you’ll be home soon - coming back to your safe space. When you’re immigrating to a new place, you wouldn’t know when you’ll be back home. You won’t even know probably if you could come home?

Leaving for a new place is costly, but staying in a new place costs you an arm and a leg.

With all the unnegotiable visa requirements, how do we negotiate borders? How do we feel at home in a foreign place? How do we translate the word “home” in our plates where the ingredients are different and they all depend on the season? 

I came from a place where we have a rubbery concept of time. In Indonesia, time is only a human’s construction. Time is a negotiation between two (or more) persons through the word “Otw” and “Insyaallah”. When the sun rises and sets for 12 hours all year long, it’s easy to make plans and to let go of plans. We live with bountiful fresh produces in a black and white world; musim hujan (rainy season) and musim kemarau (dry season). Life is predictable and easy.

I experienced living through winter last year. It was depressing. During these cold days, the sultry peanut sauce from Pecel was no longer a comfort food. I turned to squash soup and porridge topped with Lao Gan Ma’s Chili Oil. Squash is bountiful in winters. You could see all kinds of squash displayed in any grocery and farmer’s market. When I had the chance, I would go to a farmer’s market to get some local produce. But in USA, farmer’s market is not the cheapest place to buy fresh produce. I found it strange because back in Indonesia, a market is the most accessible place to get food. But, in the capitalist mainland, groceries are the real deal. 

My favorite grocery is, of course, Asian groceries. I got lemongrass, galangal, kabocha squash, bamboo shoots, tofu, Pare (bitter gourd), lotus root, and even Gambas (Luffa squash)! But being a Southeast Asian shopping in a grocery dominated by East Asian products and customers was not always comfortable. There were those looks given by aunties and uncles, scanning me from head to toe. I wouldn’t say that I was offended, but it was a strange experience. Maybe I’m too brown to shop in an Asian grocery. Maybe my braided long hair would be considered as an “Indian” hairstyle - didn’t fit in to buy chili oil. But the cashier, Li, was very nice to me. 

Checking out my grocery was like crossing an immigration gate. Instead of asking what I was going to do in the destination area, she asked what I would do with lemongrass and coconut milk at home. Sharing a recipe became an exchange; I told her what could be made with coconut milk, she told me the hotpot she made with lotus root. Sometimes, Li would yell at me from her cashier table when I was pushing around with my cart. “Ai ya, Prinka, come here! What do you do with jackfruit? This lady needs to know!”. I walked to the cashier table to find myself chatting with a Taiwanese middle-aged woman who got a huge green jackfruit from Li’s fruit rack. Just a couple of minutes before, the Taiwanese woman complained about why the jackfruit was not ripe. She told us she used to make preserved jackfruit back home in Taiwan. I told her that green jackfruit is great as a meal (Lodeh, Gulai Cubadak, even Gudeg). It was stories-exchange like this that flew me to places like Taiwan; through stories of food. Although dominantly selling Chinese products, Asian groceries in USA also have products and herbs from Korea, Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Japan, and Malaysia. You don’t need a passport to travel around “Asia” in Asian groceries. You can easily hop from the Vietnamese noodle section to the Chinese Mian in a couple of steps. I always spent at least 40 minutes in a grocery store just to check what kind of noodles that they got. In a time where traveling is difficult, highly bureaucratic, and more expensive (fewer passengers, fewer flights, higher price), grocery stores open up the borders to me. With Mandarin songs played on the speaker like the theme song of Meteor Garden, it was a nice break from listening to English sound. 

Being an Indonesian in Asian groceries makes you see things that look familiar, but when you take a step closer - it’s different. We share the same roots in some Southeast Asian Languages - like Javanese, Sundanese, and Balinese that share similarities with Champa in Central Vietnam. In the broader landscape, Indonesian shares similarities to Tagalog as a Melayu-Polynesian language. But do we make sense of words the same way? Well, not all words. My first encounter was Patis; fermented fish sauce from the Philippines. I legit thought it was a bottle of Petis, fermented shrimp paste from East Java. But both are basically fermented paste or sauce made of something from the sea. As fellow Southeast Asian, it’s a beautiful thing to know that we’re basically coastal people. You’d bet that what I do in groceries is taking a closer look at the bottles and jars, googling what they mean, and translating them using Google Translate. It’s not the same, but it’s similar. Most important is that it brings us closer to home; wherever we are.

In Morocco, it’s not always as easy as googling the name. It takes more courage and spontaneity as they have both market and epicerie (groceries in French; the unofficial language of Morocco LOL). I find myself pointing something and asking “Aynaa hada?” or “What is that?” to the sellers. I have a little notebook where I wrote down the name of vegetables or mundane things. From Amlou (nut butter) to Zipinarl (Spinach that looks like Horenso. Try to google it, I dare you! The seller couldn’t even find it on google). Fresh produce in Morocco is different from in Asia. I think it’s closer to Europe and North America. In autumn, squash and stone fruits are bountiful! But you can always find spices that grow all year long as they are grown in Southern parts of Morocco like Agadir. Onions, garlic, tomatoes, and chilies - they only have three kinds of chilies here and it’s enough heat to make sambal. 

I guess this is how I translate home through a long journey of grocery shopping, trying to come up with something that’s closer to my taste bud, devouring the food, and enjoying the whole experience. Translating home starts from reminiscing flavors, getting local produce through the hassle of communication, building layers of home flavor in the kitchen, and finally, eating the food we call home. 

Home is far away, but some borders are negotiable.

Penyetan I made last year in December, Winter 2020. With local Tempe, mashed with Sambal, Raw String beans and Pan-roasted Carrots as Lalapan, and Roasted Brussel Sprouts topped with Minyak Jelantah.