by Alexa Hartono

Created on: February 25, 2007   Last Updated: May 04, 2007

Good foods make you full. But, amazing food makes you fulfilled. It is my way to say that amazing food -a single amazing food- is the one that can put you beyond satisfaction. It touches not only your senses, but also touches your feeling and put you into unforgettable dining experience.

Ask me about amazing foods of Asia, and my answer would be:
The "Kari Kameng" or lamb curry. It is a home-made Aceh traditional food tastes a bit like Indian curry served on top of supple white rice. The white rice is special too, as it is cooked with firewoods and in a clay jar. The lunch menu which served to me and my co-campers just when we all almost starving after some few hours walking uphill. We find our lunch spot by a small waterfall in the upstream of a whitewater river in the last tropical rain-forest in Aceh.

What an amazing combination I've got there. The amazing food served for hungry but happy travelers with amazing landscape and sound of the river flows as the background.

The smell of the curry would surely make our saliva gland more productive. The nice smell goes along the air-flow to several hundred meters and makes anyone smells it hungry at once. The little gravy of the curry comes from thick coconut milk cooked in strong tasted spices. It puts neutralizing effects to the spices and leaving a light spicy taste that makes our tongue can optimally sensing the delight of it.

That kind of curry can be combined with other ingredients. Red-meat, chicken and even eggs. But, it is at its best served to cook lamb. The strong smell would totally eliminates the rancid smell of the meat.

Cannabis added?

There's a hot rumor about Aceh food. It is said that the food sometimes cooked with cannabis leaves to make it even more addicting. I almost believe that. But, according to my search in the web and my mail discussion with one of Indonesian culinary expert, I decided not to believe that.

No evidence on the use of cannabis leaves in Aceh food, especially aiming to make addiction. I find out that -if anyone still use the technique- to traditionally soften meat of lamb in "Kari Kameng" Aceh women used cannabis' seed. But again, that's just a word of mouth. Besides, it is not that easy to find cannabis' seed, right?

Kari Kameng is an amazing food by nature. Resulted from wisdom of great cook in the past. Such treasure do not need anything to make people addicted to it. Not even MSG, to make the gravy sauce more tasty.

In addition, the use of cannabis's seed to make soft the meat is

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