MAKING FOOD

Food

Making food to eat in Acehnese custom is usually involved ingredients cooked for a long period of time. As a comparison, we might say this it is a contrast between a garden salad which is eaten fresh and a vegetarian curry which is eaten completely cooked. In this sense, there is a lot of time spent in food making. Within the culture, there are customs that includes man or woman in making food.
In the Acehnese household, it is woman that prepares, cooks, serves, and cleans up the dish. I tried to wash my own dish before but I was not allowed. I was told,”In Aceh, man and woman have their own responsibility.” It seems to be a mutual respect of agreement of who is doing what and which task and taking what responsibility in the house. At that time it appears more to be man as the head of the family and one who supports the family financially. So, man looks for money and woman take care of the husband.
Differ from cooking as a family duty, man also cooks. This cooking is usually performed as a part of a kenduri which means a celebration of an event such as marriage, funeral, circumcision, and personal thanksgiving i.e. accepted in a government offered job, graduated from school, good harvest, starting a project, etc. What kenduri usually famous about is eating together.
The kenduri performed for a large or small event. Large event usually includes the cooking a goat or a cow. Here the goat will be prayed and put to death by Muslim ways. It is then skinned and cut to pieces. The meat is then cooked in a large wok, it about a meter in diameter. I assume this kind of cooking is done by man because it needs certain strength to start from scratch (butcher), to prepare such a large wok, and the fire wood.