Ketupat

Ketupat ( in Indonesian) or kupat (in Javanese) is rice cooked inside a woven coconut leaf pouch. In Java, this food traditionally served in the seventh day after Eid. It is a symbol of seeking and giving forgiveness.

It is usually served with sayur, thus called ketupat sayur. Sayur itself is a kind of soup. The one made to accompany ketupat usually made from vegetables, such like potato, chayote, and bean sprout. Besides vegetables, usually some tofu also added. The soup is spiced with shallots, garlic, galangal, turmeric, candlenut, salam leaf, keffir lime leaf, red chilli pepper, and salt. Then boiled in coconut milk. In my place a complete dish of ketupat consists of ketupat, sayur, lepet (sticky rice mixed with grated coconut steamed inside a woven coconut leaf pouch or wrapped in a piece of banana leaf). Sometimes lontong (rice wrapped in a piece of banana leaf in cylindrical or cone shape) also added. The pouch for lepet has a different shape from ketupat pouch.

Weaving ketupat is an interesting activity. In the past, family members gathered and each of them took a part in this activity. The elder one taught the younger how to weave coconut leaf to make a ketupat pouch. I was taught by my father and my late uncle to weave. Nowadays, sadly, everybody seems too busy to retain this tradition. People have no much leisure time for such an activity, and life become artless day by day. Many choose to buy ketupat pouch sold in market, and consequently many youth have no skill of weaving ketupat pouch.