Welcome to Pasundan, the land of the Sundanese. The Sundanese are the second largest ethnic group of Indonesia and are based in the region of West Java.

To discover the Sundanese cuisine, our guide is Chef Roy Lesmana who actively travels the world to share and teach his passion for his home region cooking.

This island country of Indonesia is so vast that it is actually the largest on earth. It is home to more than 17,000 islands and the world’s highest level of biodiversity. With a population of 267m and hundreds of distinctive ethnic and linguistic groups, this country is an amazing array of diversity, cultures, colours and of course cuisine.

West Java is part of the Pacific Ring of Fire with high seismic activities and the occasional tsunami. Mountains and volcanoes have their benefits. Mountains allow for more diverse climates. And volcanoes give you rich and fertile volcanic soil. It is no surprise then that the land is very generous. From the traditional dry rice culture to the diversity of vegetables, fruits, spices, tea and coffee, the Sundanese cuisine has plenty to choose from.

Due to its strategic location, trading with other regions of the world was crucial to its development. At the same time, these exchanges shaped it. Hindus, Buddhists, Sunni traders, Sufi scholars, Europeans mostly Dutch who ruled it for close to 300 years, Chinese and many others have left their marks.

The episode is in English.

ABOUT THE FOOD JOURNEY
We are taking you on a trip to discover culinary cultures across the world. Usually, we will showcase a typical dish that is representative of the region or country we are visiting.