I Hate Sun on Wednesday

The weather in The Hague has been so nice for the last few days. People do more activities outside while sunbathing. Classes even have to compete with weather to attract students. With the sun come earlier and last few hours later, it feels like we are in a tropical heaven. But, for horeca people, it could be a disaster. Especially me.

This is the fourth month I’ve been involved in the business of horeca, a Dutch abbreviation standing for hotel, restaurant, café and catering. This business, especially related with food, is pretty huge in the Netherlands since Dutch people usually celebrate important moments by inviting people for dinner in restaurants or hiring catering services to provide meals for some kind of celebrations. Recently, the culinary tradition in this business is getting much richer with the coming of immigrants in the country (for Dutch Labour Inspection, it is also one of main areas where undocumented immigrants are mostly hired). We can easily find various cuisines from different countries such as Cuban, Kenyan, Indian, Italian, and of course, Indonesian.

For Dutch people, Indonesian food is something very familiar since colonial time, particularly introduced by Dutch colonial officers or private businessmen. At that time, these people did not only have it during their service in East-Indies, a colonial name for Indonesia, but also in their home country by bringing along with them Indonesian babu (domestic servants) to cook for them indische food. Due to this familiarity, it is no wonder that we can find so many Indonesian food centers all over the Netherlands. In general, they can be divided into two categories: toko and restaurant. Toko is the place where we can only buy take-away food [afhalen] (even if they provide chairs and tables to eat the food on the spot, it is likely that chairs provided are for less than 10 people), while restaurant is much more bigger in terms of space with the average carrying capacity more than 20 guests. With its special service, restaurant is usually organized in much more complicated way and thus usually much more luxurious and expensive.

Me myself work in an indische restaurant. The restaurant I am working now was founded in 1920s and is still quite popular among Dutch people (at least I heard that it still frequently hosts many group dinners from many important Dutch companies/institutions). A vacancy info from an Indonesian friend, who already works for the owner of this restaurant, brought me to work in this restaurant as a dishwasher every Monday and Wednesday. For us, the dishwashers, the word “DJ” is preferred to dishwasher since we wash and touch round plates like disc jockeys in discotheques.

At first, it was not easy to work as a “DJ”. Even the restaurant I am working in already uses dish washer machine, the work is still burdensome especially because I have to pay attention to a great deal of details. Every time I am about to start washing dishes, I need to prepare two buckets of warm water [with soap]. One is for spoons, forks, and knives; the other is a bigger bucket for plates, rice bowls, schal (a kind of plates for non-rice meals). The water must be hot or at least warm to make fat of leftover foods easily swept away (peanut sauce and bumbu semur are the things I hate the most, because they both are usually still there even if plates are already drown within hot water). When I am about to put them into washing machine, I usually have to make sure that there is no fat left in those plates, otherwise I will have to wash them again. Even if those plates are already cleaned, we need to dry them again so there will be no water stains/spots marked on those plates/spoons. The last stage is to classify them into their own containers, and this prevails especially for spoons which have different styles. Each of styles have to be put in their own distinctive containers, otherwise they will be mixed up and later destroy “the beauty of food service”.

I have to do all those processes for hundreds of plates, bowls, and schals since we have what Dutch people calls as rijstafel. This is a menu package consists of different meals put in different schals. For the most simple rijstafel for two persons, I will have to wash at least two big saucer plates, two plates, 6 schals, two bowls for rice and soup, plus 2 forks, 2 knives, 9 spoons (2 for eating, 1 for rice, and the other six is for 6 schals). Wine/coffee glasses and ice cream bowls are not yet included. For my shift, the heaviest burden is usually on Wednesday when we often receive reservations (resevering) up to for 60 people. Can you count how many plates, schal, bowls, glasses and spoons I have to wash that evening?

This burden is getting heavier with the sun coming up. It is not only because we have more guests than usual, but also because nearly all of them prefer to have their dinner in the back garden. It means that, after putting all the food in schals ready to serve, I will have to bring them along walking to the garden and hand them over directly to ober (waiter/waitress). It is an additional job since in fall/winter seasons guests are having dinner upstairs where I can send the food through an elevator in the kitchen. The situation usually gets more chaotic when we (my chef and I) run out our limited schals, or we forget some of menus and the clients are asking. In such a chaotic situation, if we have more glasses broken, they usually represent psychological stress which is passed on from chef to ober or vice versa. And of course, being part of all this food chain, I myself can’t escape from this stress.

That’s why I hate sun on Wednesday!

Prins Hendrik 21K
14 May 2008; 04.10 AM

Say Cheese Say Alkmaar

Dutch people have been commonly stereotyped as “cheese head”society. The term does not only refer to their food habit, but also lexically refers to the way Dutch militia protected their head with cheese “balls” in war against Spaniards. We have a lot more to learn about Dutch cheese if we visit Alkmaar.

Alkmaar is located about 40 km in the North of Amsterdam. This small town can be reached by trains (Nederland Spoor) from all over the country. From the Hague, there is always train to Alkmaar every 30 minutes. If you want to know more about Dutch cheese culture and its industry, this is the place you should visit. There are at least two distinctive attracting sites in Alkmaar: cheese market and cheese museum, both are located in the centrum. If you do not really know Alkmaar, do not worry of getting lost. All you need is to open your eyes and find “the living signs”. I mean, if you drop at Alkmaar train station and you find many people walking in groups like tourists, follow them. I bet they are coming to visit Alkmaar cheese market. It is not surprising because it is a typical tourist site frequently promoted by local tourism board.

Alkmaar was used to be only one of many cheese market centers in the country. Apart from Alkmaar, there were cheese markets in Schangen, Hoorn, Purmerend and Edam in the North, and Gouda, Werden, Bodegraven and some other towns in the South. But, nowadays, Alkmaar cheese market is one of few ones which still exist and maintain its traditional characters. Its traditional character is maintained at least by two things, the market time and the way it is organized.

Following hundred years of tradition, Alkmaar cheese market is only held on Friday, from April to September, started from 10.00 to 12.30. But, that is only for “the show”. The actual working time for those involved in the market is far earlier and it is more complex than it looks. Cheese father, a title referring to the cheese market manager, starts preparing things for market opening at 7 am. Traditionally, just to remind him of the market, a cheese carrier will knock on his door and tell him that rooster has crowed for seven times.

Cheese father was a very respectable position in the society. He is the one who allocates places to cheese seller and lead the sale process. During the market, he is easily known by his black stick with silver knob on it as a sign of his dignity. Cheese carriers also perform important function at Alkmaar cheese market. It is these people who transport cheese from the place where cheese is vended to the weighing scale and later to traders’ carts. To perform and give good services to both cheese farmers and traders, these cheese carriers have a very strict rule. Carriers are not allowed to be late, accept tips, play games or drink beer during working hours. Breakers of the rules will be fined. The money being paid will be put into the group’s treasury to pay for “the beer evening” (hmm, it seems to be another Dutch culture deserved to be explored :-) )

The cheese carriers themselves are divided into four teams, called veems, all of them dressed in white pants and shirts, but with different colours of hat: blue, red, yellow and green. Each of these teams also has their own weighing scale since payment they receive is made according to the amount of cheese they carry. From 1773, each veem consists of six permanent carriers and a ‘bag man’, who collects weighing fees. These fees was an important source of income for Alkmaar, especially when it was granted ‘weighing rights’ from the Count of Holland and farmers were only permitted to weigh their cheese in this city with its officially recognized weights and measures.

If we look at the history of Alkmaar cheese market, we can see a more complicated links between social class, industrial relations, and culture during market operation. The start of the market is signed by a bell ringing, a privilege reserve for the honorary guests of Alkmaar city council. In the past, these guests might frequently come from some rich groups. But nowadays, due to some commercial interests, an “inclusive approach” is taken by inviting other groups as guests such as from media circle (on the day I visited Alkmaar, the honorary guests are some crews from TV Programs). There is always competition between cheese producers which held all year long. Every week, by cutting in the middle of cheese balls to allow for better judgement, the cheese they produced is tested for its colour, taste, flavour and firmness. In the end of its calendar year, the best producing company is awarded. The support to the survival of these cheese businesses is also given by those who transport from traders’ cart to the traders’ trucks. When they have to roll up the cheese into the truck, they will have to do it very carefully since their accuray in the job will determine cheese quality.

If you manage to come to the cheese market, don’t forget to visit cheese museum, just next to the weighing house. In this museum, you can find other detailed information about cheese starting from its history, how important it is to Dutch society, “development” of cheese production from domestic work by women into male-dominated industry (and imagine there were hundreds of companies producing cheese, but now only 2 big companies survived!), social symbols played in the market (it’s nice to know that agreement between cheese sellers and traders is usually reached by clapping each others’ right hand), up to the art of making cheese.

Once you get out the museum, I am sure you will have an idea why local tourism board take a tag “Say Cheese Say Alkmaar”.

The Hague, May 2nd, 2008

Polishing Army

Medan, 3 October 2006. It was just 11.30, an hour to go for dzuhur praying. There were still few people coming to a mosque located on Diponegoro street, next to the office of North Sumatra Governor. Normally, Indonesians call such streets where government and other important offices are located as jalan protokol (protocol streets). Here, on Jalan Diponegoro, we do not only find government offices, but also some private companies’. It is not surprising that the “consumers” of this mosque are those wearing nice dresses and shirts. Apart from those people with nice wears, there were also some children mostly in shorts sitting in groups.

At 12.15, many more people come, mostly through the northern gate of the mosque where more cars/motorcycles are parked. Together with their coming, the children previously sitting in groups were spread out approaching the coming jamaah. The children, mostly under 10 years old, were offering small paper with numbers to jamaah. They were following jamaah from the park of the mosque and wait until they put off their shoes. Without any words said, jamaah will accept that paper and the children would immediately take their shoes to their partners who had been waiting at some other part of the mosque. Without any verbal ijab-qabul (something required by Islamic law for [economic] transaction), a deal has been agreed between jamaah and the polisher community. And this polishing business only prevails on this northern part of the mosque.

This part of the mosque has been plotted for different groups. At that day, there were at least 5 business groups conquering different sites. Each group usually consists of at least 2 persons. The younger one has a duty to “persuade” jamaah and collect their shoes; while the older one (approximately at 17 at the oldest) is in charge of polishing the shoes. However, some children are also doing polishing, though it looks like they have difficulties in polishing shoes which are as big as their arms. With a shoe brush and KIWI or Swallow, they hope they make their customers proud again with their shoes. To make customers satisfied, some of them are even putting the socks and the shoes off of customers’ feet. Of these business actors, many of them are having South Indian look. They come from Tamil race, a group which has been living in this region for centuries.

Apart from polishing shoes, this community also provides waiting services for those beautiful shoes. As widely known for Indonesians (particularly in Java), beautiful shoes or sandals are easily lost in mosques. Due to its familiarity, if Indonesians are tired of corruption cases, it is usual to compare maling sandal (sandal thief) [whom are usually publicly beaten when they are caught] with corruptor [often released from charges]. But, here in Medan, it looks like there are only few cases with or without waiting services they provide. However, if the shoes do not need any polishing, the children are still taking the shoes and put it under waiting services. Similar with tacit transaction they had, this polishing army also has the payment in tacit deals. It looks like there is a kind of common understanding between customers and this army. As far as my observation, in general jamaah would pay 2000 rupiahs per shoes polished. However, there are also customers who do not pay at all for any service they had (particularly the waiting service). And these boys do not protest.

They also look familiar with temperamental jamaah who sometimes think of them as annoying. Looking at these boys and the way they face life, feelings can deeply involved. As the case for me when a gentleman with expensive shoes and contemporary mobile phones would leave the boys unpaid. But, after some steps taken, he took two sheets of a thousand rupiahs off of his pants’ pocket. And the boys were running for it. I feel relieved watching their work paid.