Subak — the Water Temples and Rice Terraces of Bali

The subak is the Balinese irrigation association, a body of rice farmers who share the water of one canal or one spring and answer to the same temple. It belongs to the volcanic spine of Bali, where the rivers cut deep ravines down from the crater highlands and the terraces are cut into the slopes below them. The system is much older than the Dutch presence on the island, and in 2012 UNESCO inscribed the Cultural Landscape of Bali Province, with the subak at its centre, on the World Heritage List.

Water on Bali runs downhill from the lakes and springs of the volcanic highlands, and the subak is the institution that divides it. Each subak governs its own channel, tunnel and weir, and its members, the farmers whose fields lie along that water, meet to settle the order of planting, the opening of sluices and the share each plot receives. The terraces themselves are the visible result, stepped fields following the contours of the slope, flooded in turn so that one field's outflow feeds the next below it. Kruger's account of Balinese food begins from rice, and the subak is the reason the island can grow it so densely on such steep ground. The work of the subak is not separated from religion. Each subak keeps its own temple, and above the village temples stands the water temple at the head of the system, where offerings are made to the powers of water and fertility, and where the rhythm of the rice year is marked. Planting, the first flooding, the harvest and the clearing of the canals each carry their ceremonies, and the cooking of offerings follows the same calendar. Rice is cooked and shaped into offerings as well as eaten, and the farmer's relation to the crop is one of ritual obligation as much as labour. Rice in this setting is the centre of the Balinese meal. Kruger describes the daily table as steamed rice with small portions of vegetable, meat or fish, and a sambal, with rice the part that makes it a meal. The ceremonial table extends this, with rice formed into cones, offered in banana-leaf vessels and set beside the dishes of a feast, among them the pork and the minced-fish sate of ceremonial cooking. The terraces are therefore the first step of the Balinese kitchen, because the water that crosses them is the same water the island's cooking depends on. The subak has been placed under pressure by tourism, by the sale of paddy land and by the shifting of farmers to other work. The terraces survive where the subak survives, since a field cut off from the shared water cannot be planted in step with its neighbours. The Cultural Landscape inscription recognises this, protecting the pattern of temples, canals and fields as a single working system and not as scenery.

At the Balinese table the rice of the terraces is eaten plain and steamed, and it is the ground against which the strongly seasoned dishes are set: the sambal matah of raw shallot, lemongrass and chilli, the spiced minced fish of sate lilit, the greens dressed with grated coconut. Kruger describes the meal as built around the rice, with the accompaniments small, sharp and varied. At festivals the rice is also moulded and offered in leaf, and the feast is served communally from the same harvest the subak's water has grown.