One cannot live well, love well or sleep well unless one has dined well. – Virginia Woolf
It took me just one whiff of jasmine, one bite of a curry dish, one glance at the array of batik, and one smile from a local to get me completely hooked on Bali.
Intrigued by the thought of learning an entirely new and foreign cuisine, I booked Nicole, Emily and I into the Casa Luna cooking school to learn some Balinese cooking.
Situated in the Honeymoon Guest Suites in the town of Ubud, this small inn also offers morning yoga classes. We quickly signed up for a pre-culinary hour and a half of asanas, taught by a young instructor named Ketut. Throughout the class, with roosters crowing and school children chanting as background noise, we breathed, stretched and balanced. All the while, Ketut was imploring us to use yoga in our minds even when we are not on the mat, emphasizing its mental and spiritual importance as much as the physical. He also showed us a yoga secret – which I will undoubtedly show to my yogini friends – to add flexibility to the forward bend.
After yoga, we made our way to the cooking class in an open air pavilion surrounded by old Balinese temples and courtyards, yet equipped with modern cooking equipment. A long table was set up with pitchers of water and freshly made Hibiscus juice, which our teacher, Yude, demonstrated. It was wild – she took the petals of a giant red hibiscus flower, steeped them in boiling water in a glass which turned a shade of dark purple. She then added some salt and the purple turned bright red. Some simple syrup and voila.
There were about 20 students in the class, and we each introduced ourselves before beginning. We were the only Americans in the class – others hailed from Australia, Canada, France and London – and we have found this across the board, practically no Americans in Thailand or here in Bali.
Yude then took us through each ingredient with which we’d be cooking – such as three different types of ginger, three sorts of chile peppers and a variety of spices, nuts and seeds – offering substitutions for those she assumed we wouldn’t be able to find. Our menu consisted of the following:
- Sweet and Sour salad (Rujak)
- Grilled Fish in Banana Leaves (Pepesan Ikan)
- Fish Curry (Tuna Mesanten)
- Spinach in Tomato-Chili Sambal (Kangkung Pelecing)
- Raw Chili Seasoning (Sambal Matah)
- Carrot and Cucumber Salad (Acar)
- Black Rice Pudding (Bubur Injin)
Yude speaks beautiful English, has a great sense of humor, and is a very proficient teacher. She explained how Balinese cooking is a balance of sweet, sour, salty and spicy, which couldn’t be more true. The blend of these characteristics is so delicate and varies in nearly every dish, with one flavor overpowering in a specific recipe, yet succumbing in the next. Yude had us all laughing as she added a pinch which in Bali amounts to a handful, or a splash, which she converts to a cup full.
Part of the class involved Yude demonstrating techniques, while at other times we each participated – rolling fish in banana leaves and grinding ingredients (lemongrass is probably my favorite) in a Balinese mortar and pestle (larger and flatter then the traditional Mexican one and easier for grinding versus crushing).
The result was a scrumptious meal (Rich and Simon appeared at the end and were invited by Yude to reap the benefits of our efforts) that we shared with our fellow classmates around the long teak Balinese table. I only hope to recreate some of these dishes once back at home…
