Balinese cuisine

Balinese cuisine is a cuisine tradition of Balinese people from the volcanic island of Bali. Balinese Cuisine is one of the most complex cuisines in the world. Using an incredible variety of spices, blended with the fresh vegetables, meat and fish. Part of Indonesian cuisine, it demonstrates indigenous traditions, as well as influences from other Indonesian regional cuisine, Chinese and Indian. The island's inhabitants are predominantly Hindu and culinary traditions are somewhat distinct with the rest of Indonesia, with festivals and religious celebrations including many special foods prepared as the offerings for the deities, as well as other dishes consumed communally during the celebrations.

Rice is almost always consumed as a staple accompanied with vegetables, meat and seafood. Pork, chicken, fruit, vegetables and seafood are widely utilized, however just like most of Hindus, beef is never or rarely consumed.

Bali is a popular tourist destination, and the area has quite a lot of cooking schools with daily courses of Balinese cuisine. Night markets, warungs (food stands), and fruit vendors sell local delicacies. Festivals include ornately prepared foods as part of the celebrations. As a popular tourist area, many westernized foods are also available as well as other regional ethnic cuisines.

Balinese

Balinese may refer to:

Balinese (Unicode block)

Balinese is a Unicode block containing characters of Balinese script for the Balinese language. Balinese language is mainly spoken on the island of Bali, Indonesia.

See also

References

Balinese alphabet

The Balinese script, natively known as Aksara Bali and Hanacaraka, is an abugida used in the island of Bali, Indonesia, commonly for writing the Austronesian Balinese language, Old Javanese, and the liturgical language Sanskrit. With some modifications, the script is also used to write the Sasak language, used in the neighboring island of Lombok. The script is a descendant of the Brahmi script, and so has many similarities with the modern scripts of South and Southeast Asia. The Balinese script, along with the Javanese script, is considered the most elaborate and ornate among Brahmic scripts of Southeast Asia.

Though everyday use of the script has largely been supplanted by the Latin alphabet, the Balinese script has significant prevalence in many of the island's traditional ceremonies and is strongly associated with the Hindu religion. The script is mainly used today for copying lontar or palm leaf manuscripts containing religious texts.

Characteristics

There are 47 letters in the Balinese script, each representing a syllable with inherent vowel /a/ or/ə/ at the end of a sentence, which changes depending on the diacritics around the letter. Pure Balinese can be written with 18 consonant letters and 9 vowel letters, while Sanskrit transliteration or loan words from Sanskrit and Old Javanese utilizes the full set. A set of modified letters are also used for writing the Sasak language. Each consonant has a conjunct form called gantungan which nullifies the inherent vowel of the previous syllable.