Foodies, who here likes to eat fritters? This well-known snack is best enjoyed with friends, or while drinking coffee or tea. It can also be enjoyed anytime, and can easily be found in traditional coffee shops or street food.
There are various types of fritters such as tempeh, tofu, bakwan, and fried banana which can be considered Indonesians’ favorite snacks. Besides being edible anytime, you can also get them at a very low price. Several fritters can be eaten as a side dish even. But has it ever crossed your mind when this food started being well-known in Indonesia, Foodies?
In this article, Foodoo will explore the fritters’ history and how it came to Indonesia.
Fritters have been around in this world for a long time. A book called ‘A History of Food’ revealed the techniques of deep frying in oil which dates back to 1200 BC in Egypt. Deep frying originally existed in Egypt and was spread throughout the world that’s why England has fish and chips, America with fried chicken, and even Japan with tempura. Then what about fritters in Indonesia? Where did we learn deep frying from?
In Indonesia, fritters initially came from Chinese immigrants. China brought a lot of influence to the culinary world in Indonesia including noodles, fried rice, meatballs, and last but not least fritters. There are two frying techniques; little oil (jian) and a lot of oil (zha), which both were introduced by China. The common cooking techniques in Indonesia were drying, salting, boiling, steaming, and smoking however the zha technique later became the basis for making fritters in Indonesia, and was adapted to develop even more various types of fritters. Ote-ote, cireng, fried bananas, and bakwan are some famous fritters in Indonesia, where everything is wrapped in flour and proceeds to be fried in a lot of oil.
The ease of making fritters and how low their costs caused them to be very popular with Indonesians. Now fritters are considered street food, even found in cafes where you usually hang out. Exciting how far fritters traveled from Egypt, then brought by China, and finally reached Indonesia isn’t it, Foodies?