Bali stands apart from every other Indonesian culinary tradition because of its religion. Indonesia is the world's largest Muslim-majority country — 87% Muslim. Bali is 83% Hindu. This single fact produces a completely different cuisine: pork is central to Balinese cooking (where it is absent or forbidden in most of the rest of Indonesia), offerings to temple deities include specific preparations that exist nowhere else in the archipelago, and the Balinese approach to spice is shaped by rituals that are thousands of years old. Heinz von Holzen and Lother Arsana (*The Food of Indonesia*), and Wil Meyrick (*Sarong: A Chef's Journey*) document Balinese cuisine as the most elaborately seasoned tradition in Indonesia — the Balinese spice pastes (base genep and base wangen) use more individual spices than Javanese or Minangkabau preparations, and the ceremonial preparations (babi guling, bebek betutu) require hours of preparation and cooking for specific temple occasions.
INDONESIAN CUISINE — TIER 1 DEEP EXTRACTION (BATCH 2)