Although
they eat meals only twice a day, the Balinese are always snacking.
Women rush from the family compound into the street the minute a passing
food vendor twangs the metal chime on his push cart; men stop off
at their local waning shop for a coffee on the way home from the paddy
fields, while school children cannot resist crisp fried crackers (krupuk)
or a plate of rujak, sliced sour fruit with a sweet
and pungent sauce.
The
warung is more than just a place to have a snack, buy a
packet of clove-scented kretek cigarettes, a box of
mosquito coils or a small bag of washing powder, it is somewhere to
meet friends and a major focal point of the village. Often with walls
of plaited bamboo strips and a packed dirt or cement floor, most warung
consist simply of a large table crammed with merchandise and a long
wooden bench set in front.
Lined up
along the front of the table are bottles of local soft drink., beer
and plastic bottles of mineral water. Among the confusing and colourful
jumble of enamelled basins piled with packets, screw-top plastic jars,
bunches of bananas and perhaps a pile of fruits for making rujak,
there are innumerable options for a quick snack: salted peanuts, huge
savoury rempeyek or rice-flour biscuits with peanuts,
id cakes, sweetbread rolls, candies and krupuk.
Rickety
looking stalls, little more than a simple cart on bicycle wheels,
painted in primary colours, with a plastic or glass display case on
top, are found everywhere in Bali. Generally operated by non-Balinese,
these mobile food stalls do a roaring trade serving just one dish.
Mie bakso (meat-ball and noodle soup), tahu goreng
(deep-fried stuffed beancurd), boiled mung beans in a sweet sauce
and brightly coloured concoctions of syrup and fruits are favourites
provided by the mobile vendors.
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