t.wijaya

T. WIJAYA
Learn to Cook History

As an Indonesian, I learn how to cook history. Making preserved fish and soften their bones to that the protein from planktons will make my brain healthy. My brain is advertisements of anxiety. My chair of mind is swaying in the ocean, and the submarines in the shallow sea smell the aroma of my cuisine which are politics bills. There is actually no history inside our kitchens. The holy pans and plates have been kept in the fridge for 15 centuries. The ancient caves hide our appetites, and leave the frozen tougue of buffaloes.
God also like the garlic from Acun’s garden. Whether it is salted or not, is still talks by the truth, including about volcano’s eruption and the storm at the dining table. Before the knife and the fried tempe*), the new president squeezes the napkin. Then from the belly of the grimy house a river of oil springs out. It is expensive, really, to serve the garlic for God. He said that the preserverd fish is too sour and spicy!
Our mounths are sour and spicy. From sucking the rain. Inhaling the dew. There are no more gardens to be planted with mango and lanseh trees. Merely oil and oil. The dessert produced by our kitchen are animation movies and a broker’s menu.
As an Indonesian and a cook of a poor family, I must live in Bandung. Not in Aceh. Not in Atjeh. Not in the banks of the Musi*). Bandung, my stylish joyful prophet, located just a few kilometers from Jakarta.

2005

*Tempe; meal, made from fermented soybean
*Musi; name of a river in South Sumatra