Legendary Culinary in Glodok Chinatown, Squid Salad Since 1950s
Reported by: Liu Setiawan
Jakarta, September 9, 2024/Indonesia Media – For around 74 years, one of Betawi (native tribe of Jakarta)’s distinctive cuisine and legendary in Jakarta’s Chinatown Glodok, namely salad of dried shredded squid ‘Asoy’, having existed and yet unwipable by time till it turns to be a doorman at Toko Tiga Seberang (literally, across three shop) Glodok area. The salad is a dish of various mixtures of raw or cooked vegetables, and the shredded squid was popularly known in Chinatown Glodok, as Juhi salad.
Asoy is an Indonesian slang, meaning exuberant. Juhi salad is served, and sold by using a cart, a 2-wheeled vehicle drawn by the seller, Agus, almost everyday to meet the customer’s appetite. When selling, the cart is placed on standby at the northern tip of Toko Tiga Seberang street. Juhi is legendary, while the other distinctive artifacts in Glodok Chinatown such as the Chinese newspaper publishing company, Harian Indonesia (HI), Chitra hotel have gone bankrupt. HI, Chitra hotel and Juhi are the artifacts of Toko Tiga street which started to exist at the same time, 70 years ago. “My Juhi salad still exists, descended from my late father, who has been dead since 2004. Some of our customers whose ages more than 70 years still remember, and buy my Juhi salad. Some of them (old customers) have moved to Tangerang, Bandung, Bogor. During long holidays, such as Moslem Lebaran festival, Christmas, they still come here to enjoy eating Juhi,” said Agus, who was born in Jakarta 50 years ago.
In 1950, his father started to open a small hut selling juhi with only one table and some wooden chairs. When growing bigger, Agus was asked by his father to help sell Juhi. His father also needed to teach him to stand on Agus’ own feet someday, by selling another Juhi. At that time, Agus was still ten years old. He still could not do much fully, except cleaning the plates. Then he learned bit by bit, since he needed to adjust the preparation of Juhi for customers, either Juhi is eaten at the premises or takeaway. If Juhi was bought takeaway, he used plastic to wrap for his customers. “I still could not do many things, It was likely that I was only subordinate to my father. I just saw my father preparing Juhi for the customers, and started to learn. Besides, my father was very strict and asked me to learn. Moreover, my family was not financially secure. So after school hours, I rushed to the cart to help my father sell Juhi,” said Agus.
Once, my father gave severe punishment to me when I played truant. Since that, he gave me an ultimatum to come everyday and start selling juhi. Since that severe punishment, he was forced to learn more seriously preparing Juhi, especially making the salad, kind of gravy and all ingredients. Besides that, he was asked to accompany his father to the market to buy some ingredients including dried cuttlefish, vegetables, and peanut chilli. At that time they went to a wet market in the Angke area. “In 1980, I started to do everything by myself, and my father let me alone. I started to learn the recipes, especially dried cuttlefish. I learned to know that there are three types of dried squid; firstly lontar or Doub palm, Tala or tal palm, Toddy palm, Lontar palm, secondly, waru or hibiscus tiliaceus leaves and thirdly, is heart-shaped (jantung). “Each type has differences, especially the distinctive reddish flesh of squid,” said Agus.
His father used to insist on using waru squid which is bigger compared to the other two types. While, heart-shaped squid, the size of flesh is smaller so he found it a more difficult process of cutting into pieces. While the potato must be cooked and fried. The squid must be cleaned fully, before the pieces (after being cut into pieces) spread it out. While other ingredients such as cabbage, chilli, garlic are needed to give a more distinctive taste of Juhi salad. “heart-shaped squid has reddish flesh, distinctive. Actually, there are more than three types of dried squid, but my father used three types only, and I just follow what he has done,” said Agus.
The price of heart-shaped squid is only half of the price of waru, that is Rp 30.000 (about 1.9 US Dollar). And waru costs Rp 60.000 per kilogram. He sells the salad at the price of Rp 25.000 – 30.000 per portion. “I often use heart-shaped squid for Juhi salad. This is a matter of cost efficiency. I am sure, the taste between heart-shaped and waru is not so different,” said Agus. (LS/IM)
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