Traveling Food

A young man poses with his colorfully decorated cart carrying Pempek, a dish made from ground fish
and tapioca flour, and served with sweet or spicy sauces. The cart reads "Rp 1000" meaning one serving
costs just over $0.10 USD.

An essential part of Indonesian cuisine is the rich and lively culture of street food. In Yogyakarta travelling food carts serve meals, snacks and cold drinks throughout neighborhoods and work their way down the busy streets alongside the crowds of motorcycles, city buses, traditional pedicabs and horse drawn carriages that the traffic in Yogyakarta comprises. In the afternoon the streets are often bustling with vendors - on my way home from school I bike past carts selling mie ayam, noodles in broth with marinated chicken and mustard greens; gorengan, a name referring to any kind of battered or fried snack; and rujak es krim, a potpourri of diced tropical fruits topped with Indonesian style ice cream - closer to the consistency of sorbet but made from milk- and a bit of hot chili pepper sauce on top. When they are not travelling down the streets these food vendors will often park their carts on the edge of the road, in the parking lots of office buildings, in front of schools - anywhere there is room and the promise of customers - and serve out their food to people who stop by.

The food carts here come in every shape and size. There are traditional hand pushed wooden carts named kaki lima, or “five feet,” referring to the sum of the two wheels, single back stand, and two feet of the man pushing it; larger bicycle carts with the seat and pedals positioned behind the cart; and carts that are comprised of a large crate fitted to the back seat of a motorcycle. Those carts selling traditional cuisine are juxtaposed with more modern carts selling commercial products, like ice cream bars or pasteurized milk, with logo-plastered frames and recorded jingles broadcasting from their electronic megaphones.

It's not uncommon for vendors to leave their carts unattended in busy areas while they take
a break or go to a nearby mosque or masjid to pray.

But the modern carts selling commercial products and the more traditional vendors alike each have their own unique sound to broadcast what they are selling.

The squeaky horn of the cart selling fresh slices of fruit; the bakso meatball vendor clinking his spoon against a ceramic bowl; or the tapping of wooden blocks that announces the arrival of siomay, a dish of steamed vegetables and fish drenched in a spicy peanut sauce. Once you’ve learned the different sounds you always know what the vendor making his way down your street is selling.

Each morning as I’m dragging myself out of bed and preparing for school I hear the cart selling Sari Roti, a brand of processed white breads, singing down the street and know that I have about half an hour to finish getting ready before I’m late. Without fault, the white cart with its catchy tune and packages of commercially wrapped breads passes down my street every morning at 6-o’clock. The theme song plays from speakers on a short prerecorded loop, growing louder and clearer as the young man behind the cart rounds the corner and pedals past my house, and then slowly fades off into the distance. I’ve found that vendors often have a routine parking place or scheduled route that they stick to each day – I often pass the same food carts settling down at the same places along my route to school, and the vendors that pass down my street in the late afternoons have become familiar, each with their own unique songs and predictable timing. 

Many vendors sell hot dishes made to order; the prepared ingredients stacked high against the windowpane of the cart – cooked noodles and pre-chopped mustard greens for bakso, chicken breast and fried tofu for soto – and are assembled individually for each customer.

While on my food-cart quest capturing photos for this article I stumbled upon a man standing alone on the side of a quiet street with his cart selling a popular Indonesian soup called soto ayam. He had just served warm bowls of the soup to a group of people in a house nearby, so he was waiting with his cart not far down the street so that he could collect his dishes when they had finished. Feeling hungry I stopped and asked for a bowl of the soup with the noodles and without the rice and then found a seat on a long wooden bench that just happened to be nearby to wait. Pulling a bowl out from the bottom drawer of the cart the man added a handful of noodles, bean sprouts, and then shredded cabbage before drowning it all with a heaping ladle of broth from the large metal pot that sat on a small coal fire inside the cart. From the top shelf of the cart he took a piece fried tofu and a chicken breast, and he sliced the tofu and shredded some of the chicken meat directly into the bowl of soup. A few fried onions and just a pinch of chopped celery was added for the finishing touch, and then he brought the warm soup over to where I sat along with small dish of chili sauce and a bottle of a sweet soy sauce, somewhat confusingly for the native English-speaker called kecap (pronounced like ketchup), to be added as I liked.

The vendor left and then returned carrying a tray of bowls and condiments used by the previous customers. As I ate he washed the dishes in a small bucket of water behind his cart, preparing them for the next customers. It was a quiet morning, the street empty, and in that time no one else arrived eager to buy soto. The vendor and I talked briefly, I told him that I was from the U.S. but lived around the block with a host family and I asked if he too lived in the area – he didn’t, leaving me to wonder how far he journeyed each day walking down the streets of Yogyakarta with his soto cart.

I finished and returned my bowl, thanking the vendor and as I headed off on my way he started down the road in the opposite direction, continuing along his route in search of his next customers.