September 25, 2018

Getting babi pangang on the cultural heritage list

Filed under: Food & Drink,History by Orangemaster @ 12:21 pm

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Dutch-Chinese filmmaker Julie Ng is currently working on a film about the Dutch-Chinese community entitled ‘Wij zijn meer dan babi pangang’ (‘We’re more than babi pangang’). Since the number of Chinese-Indonesian restaurants where the dish is served are disappearing, some 1097 left as documented recently by Marc van Wonderen in his picture book, Ng believes it’s time to protect babi pangang as part of her identity and the collective Dutch one as well by getting it on the cultural heritage list.

Babi pangang is the name of a quintessential Chinese-Indonesian restaurant dish with Dutch, Chinese-Indonesian and Malay roots, consisting of pork in a tomato-based sweet-and-sour sauce, also served in Flanders and made popular in the late 1960-1970s.

Babi pangang is a made-up dish much in the same way that Madras sauce is a British invention and chop suey is an American-Chinese one. However, in the Netherlands when it comes to food, eating Chinese usually implies Chinese-Indonesian since it is the only Chinese food many people here actually know unless they live in big cities or have travelled far enough to know the difference.

(Link: tpo.nl)

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May 19, 2018

All Chinese Indonesian restaurants in one book

Filed under: Dutch first,Food & Drink,Literature by Orangemaster @ 9:59 pm

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Last summer, friend of 24 oranges HQ, journalist turned photographer Mark van Wonderen (pictured below) decided to write a book about Chinese Indonesian restaurants in the Netherlands, and visited all 1097 of them. The book is entitled ‘Chin. Ind. Spec. Rest., a disappearing Dutch phenomenon’. Chinese Indonesian restaurants are big family restaurants the Dutch would go to on special occasions, as well as being classic take away places, complete with separate entrances and waiting rooms.

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The ethnic Chinese born in the Dutch East Indies eventually came to the Netherlands as of the 1960s, and as a result opened a ton of restaurants, which are different than the usual Hunan and Szechuan Chinese fare you’ll find in other Western countries. The book captures the fading kitsch factor of these culinary institutions. The book launch was held at Wong Koen in Amsterdam Oost.

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In front of Mark enjoying his book singing, there are a bunch of newspaper-like papers with prints of the inside of the book, which were used to wrap up the books people bought and had signed, the same type of paper used to wrap up Chinese Indonesian take away food.

More about how this book came to be: Dutchman pens book about Chinese Indonesian restaurants.

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June 9, 2017

Dutchman pens book about Chinese Indonesian restaurants

Filed under: Dutch first,Food & Drink by Orangemaster @ 10:13 am

MarkVanWonderen

A friend of 24 oranges HQ, journalist and photographer Mark van Wonderen decided a while back to write a book about Chinese Indonesian restaurants in the Netherlands, and is currently busy visiting all 1097 of them. There used to be a whole lot more ‘Chin. Ind.’ restaurants, but they are slowly being turned into more modern types of restaurants, especially in the province of North Holland. The ethnic Chinese born in the Dutch East Indies eventually came to the Netherlands as of the 1960s, and as a result opened a ton of restaurants, which are different than the usual Hunan and Szechuan Chinese fare you’ll find in other Western countries.

Van Wonderen is motivated by the fading kitsch factor of these family restaurants where the Dutch would either have a sit down meal with the family on a Saturday night for some special occasion or swing by on a Sunday night where you would order at a counter walled off from the main restaurant with its own waiting area and in a matter of minutes someone would slide a bag full of warm plastic containers through a food hatch for you to take home.

While visiting a bunch of restaurants in the province of Drenthe, Van Wonderen spotted the sign of a restaurant being closed to make way for an Italian restaurant. He decided he wanted to have the sign and bring it home, and the new owner said ‘sure, but you have to take it down yourself’, a process that apparently took two days. And yes he’ll be putting the sign in his living room.

(Link and photo: rtvdrenthe.nl)

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