Macau, Bali and the Malay World: A Gastronomic Perspective

Abstract

Macau’s location on the South China Sea suggests that any syncretic activity would have been of Sinitic-Portuguese variety. However, the situation is rather more nuanced, as the culture of the Macanese people, who consider themselves the ‘sons of the land’, reflects Portuguese colonial activity across the Indian Ocean and especially Malacca. Links between Macau and the ‘Malay World’ are deep and complex, and this paper approaches this issue through historical and political analysis, but also through the specifics of etymology and cuisine. The paper also draws comparisons with other ‘creolised’ cuisines in Southeast Asia such as Peranakan food in Malaysia and Western-Indonesian hybrids that have arisen in the tourism context of Bali. Given the importance played by women in preparing dishes for Portuguese men in Macau, parallels are drawn with the role of enslaved Hindu-Balinese women in colonial Batavia (Jakarta) who prepared pork dishes for their Dutch masters.

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Author Biographies

Annabel Jackson, ICCE, Goldsmiths, University of London

Dr Annabel Jackson is the author of many books about cuisine in Asia, including The Making of Macau’s Fusion Cuisine: from family table to world stage (2020) and Taste of Macau: Portuguese Cuisine on the China Coast (2003). She holds a MA in Anthropology of Food from SOAS (University of London), and a PhD from Goldsmiths (University of London), her thesis on the sociology of gastronomy in Macau.

Putu Diah Sastri Pitanatri, Bali Tourism Polytechnic, Bali, Indonesia

Dr Diah Sastri Pitanatri is a lecturer at Bali Tourism Polytechnic, Ministry of Tourism of The Republic of Indonesia. She received her Ph.D. in Tourism Studies from Gadjah Mada University, Yogyakarta. She was awarded as the best lecturer by the Ministry of Tourism of the Republic of Indonesia in the Win Way Award (2018). She has published articles, book chapters and authored several books. Her areas of research interest include smart tourism, tourist mobility, and sustainability studies.

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Published
2024-10-04
How to Cite
JACKSON, Annabel; HITCHCOCK, Michael John; PITANATRI, Putu Diah Sastri. Macau, Bali and the Malay World: A Gastronomic Perspective. Jurnal Kajian Bali (Journal of Bali Studies), [S.l.], v. 14, n. 2, p. 401-422, oct. 2024. ISSN 2580-0698. Available at: <https://ojs.unud.ac.id/index.php/kajianbali/article/view/117882>. Date accessed: 21 nov. 2024. doi: https://doi.org/10.24843/JKB.2024.v14.i02.p05.