Elderly Indonesian legend's treats stand test of time

YOGYAKARTA •As morning approaches in an Indonesian city famed for its street food scene, a queue of sleepy customers snakes its way along the road in anticipation of a local culinary legend.

The clock hits 5am in Yogyakarta and out of the darkness appears a small and frail sarong-clad woman on the back of a black motorbike. She climbs off slowly, tightly holding a basket that carries the sweet snacks she has been selling for more than half a century.

Now 76 years old, Mbah Satinem was the Indonesian cultural hub's best-kept secret for decades, but she is today a cooking sensation after shooting to fame in the 2019 Netflix series Street Food: Asia.

Every day, she opens her stall before dawn and hunches over a table to prepare and dish out traditional market snacks known as jajan pasar.

Displayed on a banana leaf is a selection of treats that includes an Indonesian sweet cake known as lupis, made from glutinous rice. Alongside the star dish is tiwul, which is made using cassava flour, palm sugar and cenil, a worm-shaped tapioca flour jelly.

"I've been selling lupis for a very long time, nothing has changed," she said from the stall she has run since 1963.

"Lupis and I are fated for each other," she added, quietly laughing.

She cuts it with a nylon thread, carefully placing it on the banana leaf before dripping thick liquid palm sugar and sprinkling grated coconut over the breakfast fare. The secret to the recipe passed down from her mother, she said, is firewood, which gives the sweet treat a smoky flavour.

Her stall is now surrounded daily by dozens of fascinated customers who watch her every move and document the process with their phones.

"The taste of her lupis is still the same. The savouriness and stickiness of the lupis, and the thickness of the brown sauce, it is delicious," said 49-year-old Budi.

Her version of jajan pasar, sold until 9am at 10,000 rupiah (95 Singapore cents) a pop, has proven so popular that she has introduced a number system for customers after fights broke out over her treats.

Customers who have to wait more than an hour to satisfy their sweet tooth come from all corners of Java, the Indonesian island where Yogyakarta sits in the middle.

One of them is 39-year-old Rama Luhur from the capital Jakarta, who waited nearly two hours to get a taste of the famous lupis after seeing Satinem on Netflix. "It's worth it. You can find jajan pasar everywhere, but I value her hard work."

That hard work subsides only during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. But every other day of the year, she rises early to begin her preparation.

Asked why she refuses to quit what is usually a young person's game, the enduring street food granny brushes off the question with a laugh.

Her daughter Mukinem steps in to answer for the shy chef. "She likes it, she enjoys cooking the snacks. And she can't stay put."

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE