Minahasan cuisine

Manadonese cuisine is marked by a mixture of native and foreign influences. Native Minahasan cooking tradition relies heavily on seafood as well as exotic bushmeats, and its heavy use of freshly chopped hot spices. It also demonstrates Chinese and Western influences (especially Portuguese and Dutch), most prominent in soups, cakes, and pastries.

Chicken and beef are commonly consumed. A significant number of Minahasans are Christians; the halal dietary law has thus not played an important role in the cuisine's development as it has for the Minahasans' Muslim neighbors on the Sulawesi island (the Gorontalos and Northern Maluku people). Pork, wild boar, and even dog meat and bat are hence more ubiquitous in Manadonese cuisine compared to other culinary traditions in the Indonesian archipelago.

Hot and spicy dabu-dabu condiment

Manadonese cuisine is well known for its generous use of spices, sometimes making up more than half of the whole dish's ingredients. It has given the cuisine the reputation of being hot and spicy, often from the freshly chopped chili peppers added in. Common spices used in Manadonese cuisine include lemongrass, kaffir lime leaves, lime juice, chili peppers, spring onions, shallots, garlic, cloves and candlenut. Seafood, pork and chicken are often cooked in Manadonese signature bumbu (spice blends), such as rica-rica and woku. Spicy condiments are also served as dipping sauce for seafood, such as dabu-dabu and sambal roa.

Klappertaart or coconut custard

Among Indonesian ethnicities, Minahasans are well known for their affinities with European culture. A number of European-influenced cakes and pastries made their way into the Minahasan kitchen. The most notable probably is klappertaart (from Dutch language, lit. coconut tart). Another example is panada, a Portuguese-influenced panada similar to empanadas and filled with spiced ground skipjack tuna.

Cakalang fufu, cured and smoked skipjack tuna

The Minahassa Peninsula – the northern arm of Sulawesi, a narrow peninsula that formed the North Sulawesi and Gorontalo provinces – is surrounded by seas on almost all sides. The Sulawesi Sea, Maluku Sea, and Gulf of Tomini have been fished by the Minahasan people for generations, and seafood has thus become a staple diet in Manado. The harbor cities of Manado and Bitung are the center of the fishing industry in the area.

Various seafood such as cakalang (skipjack tuna), tude (mackerel), oci (larger mackerel), tuna, albacore, bobara (trevally), kakap (red snapper), kerapu (garoupa), tenggiri (wahoo), bawal (pomfret), shrimp, mussels and crabs are available in the marketplace, often being grilled on charcoal, and served in dabu-dabu, cooked in woku, in rica-rica, or in kuah asam soup.

Paniki, fruit bat in spicy bumbu rica-rica green chili pepper

Minahasan people are also known for their bushmeats tradition. Before converting to Christianity in early 16th to 17th century, Minahasans were animists, and their practice on consuming almost every kind of animal still continued until this days. Rintek wuuk or RW (lit. Minahasan: "fine hair") is euphemism of dog meat. In Minahasan culture it is considered prestigious to consume rare and unusual meats. The marketplaces of the mountainous town of Tomohon and Tondano are notorious for selling various kinds of exotic bushmeats; from wild boar, field rats, patola snake (python), frog legs, paniki or fruit bats, and dog meat. Sometimes protected endangered animals such as yaki (Sulawesi black macaque), kuse (slow loris), tapir and anoa are illegally sold in marketplace as food.[2]

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  Bobara kuah asam, trevally in sour soup
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  Papaya flower bud cooked as vegetables
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  Chicken rica-rica

• Indonesian cuisine
• Indo cuisine
• Batak cuisine
• Minahasa people

• Media related to Cuisine of Manado at Wikimedia Commons