Indonesian Food Festival in Switzerland

The yearning of Indonesian people in Switzerland for meals like Batagor, Gudeg, Kapau-rice, is fulfilled by the convention of Indonesische Festival in Switzerland, recently. 

The Pensosbud (Socio-Culture Education) First Secretary of Indonesian Embassy in Bern, 

Oktavia Maludin, told Antara in London, on Wednesday, that the Indonesische Festival was attended by the visitors that came from every corner of Switzerland, the French and Germany border, all gathered at the multipurpose-building owned by the Rheinfelden Government.

Indonesian Ambassador for Swiss Confederation and Keharyapatihan Liechtenstein, Linggawaty Hakim, who visited the booths of food and various products of Indonesia said the Indonesian Embassy in Bern always support such activities in order to promote tourism and culture of Indonesia.

The Ambassador stated that events of Indonesia Festival are also used by the Indonesian Embassy to provide the counselor services to the community. With the pick-up-the-ball services, Indonesian Embassy expects the immediacy and cooperation between the Indonesian Embassy and the citizens can be formed, she said.

Not only the Indonesian citizens who miss the taste of Indonesian culinary, the visitors from Switzerland who have been to Indonesia are also felt the same. A number of typical food and culinary of Indonesia, such as Batagor, Gudeg, Kapau-rice, Satay were hard-selling, though it sold with a price of 10 to 15 Swiss Franc per serving.

Besides Food, there were also booths of Handcraft, Batik, Indonesian Traditional clothes, and Pearl accessories which directly brought from Lombok.

One thing that was quite interesting in this event, was the stand-seller and the majority of visitors were cohesively wore Batik.

The Indonesian Embassy in Bern together with Catharina Oehler, the owner of Versand Indonesian Market, the main distributor of Indonesian products, distributed questionnaires for the Swiss visitors, about what that arise spontaneously in their minds when they heard the word "Indonesia".

Many who answered Bali and Diving. There were also some specific answers such as Chicken Satay, Fried Noodles/Rice, even the Indonesian women are noted for beautiful. This is one of the five questions asked in the "Bitte erzahlen Sie Indonesian in 5 worter" questionnaire, or 'Describe Indonesia in 5 words'.

Source : Tempo