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Flavours, fermentation at Ubud Food Fest

Bali, Indonesia — Fermentation was a hot topic at the Ubud Food Festival last weekend.

The Ubud Food Festival events included hands-on classes such as Food as Medicine, with the festival's founder Janet DeNeefe (in red). Photo: Matt Oldfield

The Ubud Food Festival events included hands-on classes such as Food as Medicine, with the festival's founder Janet DeNeefe (in red). Photo: Matt Oldfield

Bali, Indonesia — Fermentation was a hot topic at the Ubud Food Festival last weekend.

There, participants in a workshop were taught how to make coconut nectar “moonshine”, along with coconut yogurt, fermented sambal, and even a concoction of coconut vinegar for dressing.

“The longer you leave the coconut nectar to ferment, the higher the alcoholic content,” said Felix Schoener, who works in Localab, the new research and development arm of Bali eatery, Locavore.

Fermentation is a global trend — the number of books on the subject on websites such as Amazon have boomed in the last two years, while a search on Google for “fermented foods” and “probiotics” brings up page upon page on the topic.

In Singapore, Facebook groups on the topic are popular, boasting thousands of followers who post recipes for fermented foods such as sauerkraut and kombucha.

In Bali, the fermentation workshop was just one of many events at the third annual Ubud Food Festival, held from May 12 to May 14.

Attended by some 9,000 foodies, there were over 100 events with speakers that included Indonesian industry luminaries and world-famous international chefs.

Many events also traced indigenous ingredients from producer to plate, celebrated traditional recipes, and explored new flavours.

FERMENTED FOR FLAVOUR

The festival celebrates the varied culinary heritage of an archipelago made up of over hundreds of ethnic groups. Those are spread over 34 provinces and 17,400 islands (only a third are inhabited).

The Wild Fermentation workshop conducted by Locavore — which is at No. 22 on the Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants restaurants list — was just one of the few fermentation-themed events during the festival.

This being wellness-minded Ubud, the concept of using food to heal the body was a recurring theme during the festival.

The fermentation process is said to produce probiotic bacteria that improves gut health and thus, the digestive and immunity systems as well.

Fermented foods are said to be easier to digest, and improve the availability of vitamins and minerals in food, say fermentation fans.

Probiotic-rich food also strengthens the gut lining.

Fermentation was addressed in at least two other events.

It featured in a talk titled Indonesia’s Gift to the World, hosted by tempe expert Professor Florentinus Gregorius Winarno and Chef Ragil Iman Wibowo, who paid special tribute to the humble cake of fermented soy beans.

Wibowo also conducted a cooking demonstration using other fermented Indonesia foods — dadih (a traditional fermented milk), dangke (an Indonesian buffalo milk cheese) and oncom (another fermented soybean product).

LOCAL IS BEST

Ubud is much more than a place to Eat, Pray, Love, and Balinese produce and dishes are becoming more revered and refined.

In Food As Medicine, Ubud Food Festival founder Janet DeNeefe, along with naturopath Lola Taylor, waxed lyrical about the benefits of natural produce such as different types of ginger. They also taught guests how to make bamboo curry and sambal goreng in a hands-on cooking class.

Luxe hotel brand Aman organised a dinner featuring chefs from three of its Balinese resorts — Amanusa, Amankila and Amandari. They drew up a menu of posh Balinese nosh with a firm nod to its roots and surrounding lands. One dish features local duck and chicken, raised in the village of Kedewatan, were slow-cooked to yield flavours reminiscent of a nenek’s cooking.

At a dinner at Uma Cucina at Como Uma Ubud, part of Christina Ong’s chain of hotels, guest chef Lino Sauro of Singapore’s Gattopardo cooked up a delectable feast of fresh flavours using prawns and barramundi caught in small batches by local fishermen in Lombok.

In a lunch, Locavore and Slow Food Bali presented a menu of traditional foods and flavours by using both local and western techniques.

The dish of Tempeh Mole almost had this writer licking the bowl to get the last of the rich, spicy, chocolate-y sauce after finishing the dense, crunchy piece of tempe.

How incredibly more-ish it all was.

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