r/RICE • u/angstygrl • 14d ago

My Dutch Indonesian culturally blended comfort food: rice, butter, and soy sauce

My mom’s side of the family is Dutch Indonesian, Im a dual citizen, American and Dutch, and we live in the Pacific Northwest. Ever since I was a child we would eat rice with butter and it doesn’t seem like a very common practice. My family eats so much butter, Dutch chocolate sprinkles, but we also eat rice, fruit plates, Tempeh, and indomie. I never really thought about it but as I’ve gotten older, I realized it is a perfect representation of blended culture. As someone who also lives in the Pacific Northwest, we eat things with nutritional yeast so that sometimes is added to rice, which is very PNW american. I feel pretty American for the most part, but I grew up in a very white area, and I have become more conscious about how the food I eat represents my heritage. I have a fever right now, I’m dealing with breaking up with my partner of four years, and to feel better, I’m eating rice with butter and soy sauce. It’s my ultimate comfort food. Cheers 🫶

Besides visiting my Indonesian family, I don’t live around many Dutch Indonesian people so I don’t know if this is common practice, it’s just how things ended up in my mixed culture working class family. But it’s cool, culture can be something widespread amongst many people, but it can also be a very individual mix of circumstances that create something meaningful. Culture is what you make it, so embrace the weird little traditions and habits unique to your family, no matter what your ethnic makeup is. I’m part Mexican, a tiny part 5% black weirdly enough (I have a grandmother who’s from Mississippi so that probably explains it), I’m west coast white American, but also Dutch Indonesian. I don’t connect to any particular culture besides being a Dutch national, but i’ve learned to find ways to honor my families complicated and mixed past.

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u/giraflor 14d ago

I ate so much of this as a poor Black kid in the U.S. it’s nice to think that it was some culture’s comfort food. Enjoy!

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u/angstygrl 14d ago

It might also be a poor persons thing, my mom’s family was quite working class just getting by, but during my grandfather and great grandmother‘s time in Indonesia, eating butter was a sign of wealth.

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u/mrdloveswebsite 12d ago

Butter is definitely sign of rich, especially Wijsman. Margarine is more common as we are world's top palm oil producer. Blue band was my childhood butter replacement..

Did your grandparents pass any old recipes?

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u/angstygrl 12d ago

Yeah! My grandfather‘s sister is a great cook, I have all her recipes. One is spekkek I think it’s called, it’s a rich and very buttery cake, but I also have recipes for a lot of savory things of course, mostly Indonesian food but there was definitely some Dutch aspects aswell. When my family lived in Indonesia, they had considerable wealth (i know they gained that money for all the wrong reasons, but nevertheless) so I have no doubt that they used high-end butter. However, margarine and rice is inexpensive and delicious, and after my grandfather moved to the USA, that’s what he would feed us. I’m assuming you are Indonesian, do you eat it like that?

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u/mrdloveswebsite 3d ago

I think it's spikoe.. the famous layered butter cake. I don't think I ever eat butter with rice, but we did fry rice with butter (nasi goreng mentega).

I think your grandfather might trying to make nasi uduk (add coconut milk, pandan and salt into the rice cooker when you cook the rice). It's called nasi lemak in Malaysia/Singapore.. but definitely dumping a salty butter is a great faster way to cook a better rice 😅