Sulawesi from the Manado Coast to Toraja

Sulawesi is the orchid-shaped island between Borneo and Maluku, its four arms and mountainous interior dividing the coast into regions that have long cooked quite differently from one another. At its northern tip lie the Minahasa highlands and the port of Manado, facing the Sulawesi Sea and the Philippines; in the south-west the Makassar and Bugis coasts look onto the Makassar Strait, and in the highlands above lies Tana Toraja. Alfred Russel Wallace, who travelled the island in the 1850s, recorded its separate natural world, and the cooking is as distinct as the fauna he described.

The northern coast is the island's chilli table. Manado and the Minahasa highlands cook with bird's-eye chilli Capsicum frutescens in quantities that mark the region among all Indonesian cooking, and with the herbs and aromatics of a wet volcanic upland: lemongrass Cymbopogon citratus, ginger Zingiber officinale, turmeric Curcuma longa and the leaves of the kitchen garden. The sambal of the north, among them the raw, pounded dabu-dabu, are made to be eaten in volume with grilled fish and not as a small accent beside the rice. William Wongso, in Flavors of Indonesia, presents the Manado table as one of the country's most forceful, built on fish, on chilli and on the coconut Cocos nucifera of the coast. The sea shapes the coastal kitchens. Skipjack tuna Katsuwonus pelamis is landed in great quantity in the waters of the north and east, and it is grilled over coconut-husk fire, smoked, or cooked in a sharp, spiced preparation known as woku, where the herbs are used generously and the sauce is thin and aromatic. The same coast is known for its smoked fish, and the preserving of the catch has long tied the island's markets together. The Minahasan table is also known for foods that surprise visitors from elsewhere in the archipelago. Pork is eaten freely in this largely Christian region, in contrast with the Muslim majority of most of Indonesia, and the markets of the highlands are noted for a wider range of meats than elsewhere. Such dishes belong to feasting and to the market, and the authorities describe them as part of the region's ordinary table. In the south, the Bugis and Makassar peoples, great seafarers and traders, built the port of Makassar into a trading centre for the eastern archipelago, and their cooking is of a different temper from the north's. Soups of beef or offal in a thin, savoury broth, grilled fish eaten with sharp sauces, and sweet preparations of egg and coconut belong to this coast. Its fish and its seasoned broths show the weight of the sea and of the long trade routes that passed through the harbour. In the mountains above, Toraja country keeps its own customs of the table, bound to the funeral ceremonies for which the highlanders are known. Pork and buffalo are cooked in bamboo and with the black keluak Pangium edule, and the dishes are prepared by the community for gatherings of kin. Highland Toraja is also the home of Kopi Arabika Toraja, a protected Geographical Indication, grown in the cool altitude of the interior. The island as a whole, from the chilli of the north to the funeral kitchens of the mountains, is best understood as a set of separate tables joined by one sea.

The Manado table is built on heat and freshness: grilled skipjack, raw pounded dabu-dabu of chilli, shallot and lime, and herb-heavy stews, all eaten with rice. In the highlands the flavour turns to smoke, bamboo and the dark, earthy depth of keluak, while the Makassar coast is known for savoury broths and grilled fish with sharp sauces.