I Dream of Roasted Eel

What’s a good meal to you? Have you ever had a particularly delicious dish in an environment that is just right? A thick burger with melted cheese in a busy fast-food joint perhaps? Or a jazzy restaurant’s delicately intricate dish so pretty that you feel content just by staring at it? Or a perfectly fried mendoan at a shabby warung that you stumbled upon when you tried to locate where Kebasen is?

You may remember a lot of good meals that you’ve had. You see, the memory of a good meal tends to stay with you. It is etched at the back of your mind and springs forward when you see or hear the phrase ‘good food’, or when you’re hungry.

I love eating. I particularly adore gudeg and soto Sokaraja and have had countless portion of them. Yet, my recollection of a good meal has nothing to do with Yu Ginuk’s exceptional gudeg or Pak Amin’s thick broth and liberal topping of tripe chunks. It wasn’t even my meal. Instead, it involves two eel hunters and a graveyard.

I was about 10 then. My cousin and I were returning from a fishing expedition. We were walking across the graveyard near my uncle’s house when I saw them under a tall salam tree. Two tukang urek-urek taking a break after spending a good part of the morning fishing for eels in the vast rice fields to the east. They had built a small fire on a cemented floor between two gravestones, across which chunks of eel meat clamped between two bamboo sticks were being roasted.

They must have had a good day. The eels they selected for their lunch was quite large and they’re not exactly frugal with the cut. The meat looked reddish-brown and oily, the edges were charred from roasting. An empty sachet of kecap manis ABC suggested that they had added sweet soy sauce for taste. I could see the juice dripping down as the sweet scent of roasted eel rose to the air.

One of them produced a packet of cooked rice, while the other got up to get banana leaves which would serve as their plate. They knew my cousin and invited us over. My stupid, stupid cousin politely declined. I couldn’t remember why.

As we walked home, I couldn’t get the picture off my mind. It would have been a perfect lunch. Rice on banana leaves with slightly charred chunks of roasted eel. The meat would have been sweet, succulent and juicy. Not to mention that they are enjoyed outdoors, accompanied by light breeze bringing the scent of rice stalks. Really, I couldn’t get it off my mind. Even now.