Traditional Dietary Culture of Southeast Asia Foodways can reveal the strongest and deepest traces of human history and culture, and this pioneering volume is a detailed study of the development of the traditional dietary culture of Southeast Asia from Laos and Vietnam to the Philippines and New Guinea from earliest times to the present. Being blessed with abundant natural resources, dietary culture in Southeast Asia flourished during the pre- European period on the basis of close relationships between the cultural spheres of India and China, only to undergo significant change during the rise of Islam and the age of European colonialism. What we think of as the Southeast Asian cuisine today is the result of the complex interplay of many factors over centuries. The work is supported by full geological, archaeological, biological and chemical data, and is based largely upon Southeast Asian sources which have not been available up until now. This is essential reading for anyone interested in culinary history, the anthropology of food, and in the complex history of Southeast Asia. Professor Akira Matsuyama graduated from the University of Tokyo. He later obtained a doctorate in Agriculture from that university, later becoming Director of Radiobiology at the Institute of Physical and Chemical research. After working in Indonesia he returned to Tokyo's University of Agriculture as Visiting Professor. He is currently Honorary Scientist at the Institute of Physical and Chemical Research, Tokyo. This page intentionally left blank Traditional Dietary Culture of Southeast Asia Its Formation and Pedigree Akira Matsuyama Translated by Atsunobu Tomomatsu Routledge RTaylor & Francis Group LONDON AND NEW YORK First published by Kegan Paul in 2003 This edition first published in 2009 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016 Routledge is an imprint o f the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2003 Kegan Paul All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 10: 0710307292 ISBN 13: 9780710307293 ISBN 978-1-136-88794-9 (ebk) Publisher’s Note The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this reprint but points out that some imperfections in the original copies may be apparent. The publisher has made every effort to contact original copyright holders and would welcome correspondence from those they have been unable to trace. >*'»-' To tire memory of my wife <AM. This page intentionally left blank Contents Preface viii Explanatory notes xiv Whole map of Southeast Asia xv Introduction 1 Geographical characteristics of Southeast Asia 1 2 Traditional dietary culture and traditional foods 3 Chapter 1 Formation of the Southeast Asian world 1 Period of crustal movement 7 2 The glacial period of the Quaternary 16 3 Appearance of humans in Southeast Asia and their genealogy 24 4 Distribution and migration of human populations 28 5 Natural environments of Southeast Asia 43 Chapter 2 Dietary culture in the prehistoric times 1 Paleolithic age 51 2 Transition from the Paleolithic age to the Neolithic age 68 3 Neolithic age of food-production economy 87 Chapter 3 Dietary culture in the pre-European age 1 At the beginning of the historical age 111 v Traditional dietary culture of Southeast Asia 2 Dietary culture during the early stage of the pre-European age 115 3 Dietary culture during the early stage of the pre-European age found in inscriptions 121 4 Stone reliefs of the Borobudur Buddhism site 142 5 Dietary culture during the late pre-European age 160 6 Temple reliefs of the late stage of the preEuropean age 175 7 Dietary culture of the pre-European age found in old Chinese historical records 185 8 Development of alcoholic-drink making in the preEuropean age 203 Chapter 4 The European colonial age 1 The dietary culture of Southeast Asia at the beginning of the 16th century as found in navigation records during the age of geographical discoveries 211 2 Navigation records by Europeans in the 16th century 215 3 Javanese dietary culture in the modern age described in The History of Java by T.S. Raffles 236 4 Dietary culture in Dutch colonial days described in Dagh-Register Casteel Batavia and Nederlmidsch4tulisc)i Plakaatboek 246 5 Commercial crops: The increase in production of sugar, coffee and tea (A case study on Java) 252 6 Characteristics of Javanese traditional dietary culture in the Dutch colonial age 275 vi Contents Chapter 5 Present dietary culture of Southeast Asia 1 Comparison of traditional dietary culture of the prehistoric age with that of the present day 281 2 Agriculture, stock raising and dietary life in mainland region 282 3 Agriculture, stock raising and dietary life in archipelagic region 294 4 The dietary life in West New Guinea 300 5 Hunters and gatherers existing in Southeast Asia 302 6 Changes in agricultural practice and the tradition of staple food culture 305 Chapter 6 Traditional foods surviving to the present day 1 Sugary sap from the flower stalks of palm trees and palm wine 310 2 Black sugar and sago 319 3 Traditional fermented foods 327 4 Soybean products 341 5 Fishery salt-preserved foods and fish sauce 354 6 Starters used for food fermentation 362 Concluding Remarks 382 Notes 386 References 415 A list of quotations of tables, figures and photographs 431 Acknowledgements 434 Appendix table (Traditional foods in Southeast Asian countries) 43 5 Index 448 v ii Preface (for Japanese edition) In Southeast Asia, as clearly understood from the excavation of fossil bone of Java Man, humans have lived for several hundred thousand years. Southeast Asia could be regarded, so to speak, as the homeland of Asians. Dietary culture is always created in the places where humans are living. What kind of dietary tradition has been produced? In the Neolithic age Mongoloids came into Southeast Asia in several waves, bringing a grain cultivation culture to the regions where Australoid hunters and gatherers were. Being blessed with the abundant natural resources of Southeast Asia, dietary culture flourished during the pre-European age on the basis of close relationships made between the two ancient advanced cultural spheres of India and China. Soon, through the ages of the rise of Islam and of geographical discovery, inhabitants in Southeast Asia entered into an age of suffering exploitation and repression under a European colonialism backed by arms. However, looking at such an age of suffering from the viewpoint of dietary culture, many crops native to the American continents were brought by Europeans and these have become important foods for people dwelling in Southeast Asia at present. Also during this age Europeans introduced modern technology developed in Europe to Southeast Asia and an increase in food production and an improvement of food quality were achieved to some extent, although they were not always aimed at the welfare of indigenous inhabitants. Considering that the kinds of useful crops are limited even now in Southeast Asia, it should be realised that the introduction of novel crops from the American continents has greatly contributed in diversifying the dietary culture of Southeast Asia. Through such stormy and checkered historical ages, the Southeast Asian nations attained their political independence after World War II and are now in a remarkable phase of economical development. Recently, Japan as well as other countries has undertaken preface international cooperation in economical, technical and cultural fields intended for Southeast Asian countries. In addition, it has become obvious very recently by anthropological and animal husbandry studies that the same pedigrees as those of Paleo-Man and hunting dogs of ancient Southeast Asia existed also in ancient Japan and are also surviving even now. Southeast Asia is not in a distant and remote world at all for us. To understand different cultures is important for promoting international cooperation and it makes us proficient in understanding well our own culture. As described in Chapter 6, we will see an example in the comparison of traditional technology and related microbes for wine fermentation from rice between Southeast Asia and Japan. In this book, I have intended to make clear the pedigree of traditional dietary culture concerning its formation and development based on historical records and scientific evidence as much as possible, and yet I could present only some hypotheses in the face of enormous historical records due to my shallow learning and knowledge. I heartily hope that problems associated with these hypotheses will be elucidated by the future development of related research fields. At the same time I am also anxious about probable errors induced by lack of my own ability, because the objects of this book are a compound domain of sciences over many specialised research fields. I would be deeply grateful for notification of errors and omissions. There are several problems which have been ever present in my mind throughout writing this book. In the first place, is there any pattern which can be called the traditional dietary culture of Southeast Asia? As for this subject, I realised that there exists a pattern common to the whole of Southeast Asia but nevertheless some differences exist dependent on the districts, for example on my final visit to a Cambodian market for a survey of starters used for traditional preparations of rice wine and am azake (rice-fermented sweet product, Ttoh pai kmaw in Cambodian) and as well on my opportunities to visit IX Traditional dietary culture of Southeast Asia Indonesian islands for field work.