Skip to content
  • Home
  • Our Work
    • Our Work
    • Climate
      • Net Zero Carbon
      • Sustainable Finance
    • Sustainability & Circular Economy
      • Sustainable Palm Oil
      • Circular Economy
    • Nature & Biodiversity
      • Illegal Wildlife Trade
      • Marine Conservation
      • Forest Landscape Restoration
    • Closer to Home
      • Future Sustainability Leaders
      • Green Cities
  • About Us
    • About us
    • Chairman & CEO Note
    • Board of Directors
    • Senior Management
    • Whistleblowing Policy
    • Personal Data Protection Policy
    • Work With Us
    • Volunteering
  • Resources
    • Resources
    • Annual Reports
    • News & Events
  • Partnerships
    • Partnerships
    • Corporate Partnerships
    • Government Partnerships
Menu
  • Home
  • Our Work
    • Our Work
    • Climate
      • Net Zero Carbon
      • Sustainable Finance
    • Sustainability & Circular Economy
      • Sustainable Palm Oil
      • Circular Economy
    • Nature & Biodiversity
      • Illegal Wildlife Trade
      • Marine Conservation
      • Forest Landscape Restoration
    • Closer to Home
      • Future Sustainability Leaders
      • Green Cities
  • About Us
    • About us
    • Chairman & CEO Note
    • Board of Directors
    • Senior Management
    • Whistleblowing Policy
    • Personal Data Protection Policy
    • Work With Us
    • Volunteering
  • Resources
    • Resources
    • Annual Reports
    • News & Events
  • Partnerships
    • Partnerships
    • Corporate Partnerships
    • Government Partnerships
Menu
  • Support WWF
    • Donate
    • Adopt
    • Fundraiser
Menu
  • Support WWF
    • Donate
    • Adopt
    • Fundraiser
  • Home
  • Our Work
    • Our Work
    • Climate
      • Net Zero Carbon
      • Sustainable Finance
    • Sustainability & Circular Economy
      • Sustainable Palm Oil
      • Circular Economy
    • Nature & Biodiversity
      • Illegal Wildlife Trade
      • Marine Conservation
      • Forest Landscape Restoration
    • Closer to Home
      • Future Sustainability Leaders
      • Green Cities
  • About Us
    • About us
    • Chairman & CEO Note
    • Board of Directors
    • Senior Management
    • Whistleblowing Policy
    • Personal Data Protection Policy
    • Work With Us
    • Volunteering
  • Resources
    • Resources
    • Annual Reports
    • News & Events
  • Partnerships
    • Partnerships
    • Corporate Partnerships
    • Government Partnerships
DONATE
ADOPT
SHOP

Building a future in which people live in harmony with nature

Facebook Instagram Youtube Linkedin Twitter

Home » Slow food in the highland of Borneo

Slow food in the highland of Borneo

April 30, 2012

By Cristina Eghenter

Slow food is more than just sustenance: local, organic food is an expression of way of life and traditional knowledge in the Krayan Highlands

On April 1st 2011, at the end of the inauguration of the Cultural Field School (CFS) in the outskirts of Terang Baru, in the Krayan Highlands, participants and VIP guests walked towards the church where the women of Terang Baru had organized the lunch reception.

The food was displayed in abundance in many typical containers and bamboo plates, over a long table. There were familiar, local dishes: white, red and black adan rice, the traditional soft rice (luba laya) and many dishes of rice cooked like a thick soup with a variety of vegetables, locally known as bitter. There was  buffalo meat and fish from the irrigated rice fields and streams.
 
There were all sorts of vegetables from the forest, ranging from sprouting rattan stems to wild leaves, red ferns and palm hearts that had been fried, boiled and grilled by the women of Terang Baru according to traditional and delicate recipes.

And then there was the inevitable flavor-sparkling shallot and hot-chili paste, and the mountain salt produced in the Highlands in the Heart of Borneo. But the rest of the menu was nothing so usual. Food items with strong aroma and unsual shape dotted the table. Could not recognize most of them.

The strangest was a gelatinous product, black in color and white striped, looked like a big candy in the pot. The texture was smooth and tasted great. It turned out to be a budding mushroom that grows in the rice fields right after harvest, with a short growing season. Next to it were what looked like small white beans, but were instead the larvae of honeybees savourly cooked.

A feast of unusual and great taste, an incredible variety of organic food from the forest, gardens and rice fields of the highlands. It felt like a culinary adventure of  unusual gratification. But it was not only that. It was also the realization that the food we were having was a special, unique, local food originating from ingredients cultivated or gathered from the land and prepared by the women over the fireplace. It was local food with ancient taste, rich food with wild ingredients that only local people could know, recognize and use with such culinary mastery. It felt like a real ‘slow food’ experience in the Krayan Highlands and reminded me of the ‘slow food movement.’

The movement was born in Europe (Italy) as an initiative to counter ‘fast food’ and the globalization, uniformization of taste by preserving, protecting and promoting local, traditional food and ingredients that can only grow in certain places or maintain a special flavor because of the selected seeds, cultivation techniques, care and knowledge of the farmers, the water, sun and soil quality of that place.

The “slow food” movement is more than just about food. It is about the culture and traditions around the cultivation of plants, about the communities’ traditional and environmental knowledge embodied in food production. The food is expression of local culture and the linkages of the people with the environment around them. This added value is what makes ‘slow,’ local and traditional food worth preserving and promoting, and the local culture and knowledge that have produced it worth protecting with the recognition of collective intellectual property rights.

“Slow” food becomes, at the same time, the product and illustration of sustainable ways of production, traditional knowledge and skills, heritage and culture, and natural health. This is when food conveys care for what is local, family, and special. The traditional food of the Krayan Highlands can really be a feast for the senses and the heart, and excites our social minds.

PrevBack to Previous Page
NextNext

RELATED PUBLICATIONS

RELATED LINKS

SHARE THIS

RELATED ARTICLES

WWF-Singapore’s New Private Banking Pilot Study Shows Opportunities for Private Banks in Asia to Deliver Impactful Change

June 5, 2023

WWF-Singapore and Temasek Foundation scale up youth sustainability incubator programme to include participants from ASEAN countries

May 16, 2023

WWF-Singapore’s pilot initiative shows consumers’ willingness to opt for reusable e-commerce packaging, with a return rate greater than 50 per cent

April 11, 2023
Facebook Instagram Youtube Linkedin Twitter

Help us build a future in which people live in harmony with nature

Contact Us
354 Tanglin Road #02-11, Tanglin Block Tanglin International Centre Singapore 247672

+65 6730 8100

info@wwf.sg

Our Work
  • Climate
  • Sustainability & Circular Economy
  • Nature & Biodiversity
  • Closer to Home
Menu
  • Climate
  • Sustainability & Circular Economy
  • Nature & Biodiversity
  • Closer to Home
About Us
  • About us
  • Chairman & CEO’s Note
  • Board of Directors
  • Senior Management
  • Whistleblowing Policy
  • Personal Data Protection Policy
  • Work With Us
  • Volunteering
Menu
  • About us
  • Chairman & CEO’s Note
  • Board of Directors
  • Senior Management
  • Whistleblowing Policy
  • Personal Data Protection Policy
  • Work With Us
  • Volunteering
Resources
  • Annual reports
  • News & Events
  • Blog
Menu
  • Annual reports
  • News & Events
  • Blog
Partnerships
  • Corporate Partnerships
  • Government Partnerships
Menu
  • Corporate Partnerships
  • Government Partnerships
Support WWF
  • Donate
  • Adopt
  • Fundraiser
Menu
  • Donate
  • Adopt
  • Fundraiser

©️ 2022 WWF – World Wide Fund for Nature (Singapore) Limited (UEN 200602275E) |
©️ 1986 Panda Symbol WWF – World Wide Fund For Nature (formerly World Wildlife Fund) | ®️ “WWF” is a WWF Registered Trademark