Lawar Barak: The Real Bali Food They Never Tell You
Do you know Bali well enough that you've tried this food before? The food that I am talking about here is called lawar. It is made of mixture of spices and sliced and minced pork. But there is another special ingredient that is going to blow your mind; it is raw pig blood. Lawar is a special food for Balinese. People make lawar on special occasion like holy day or temple festival. (There is a Holy Day coming next week called Galungan, I will write about it in a few days). It can also be found at wedding feast, or tooth filling ceremony. You can buy lawar at food stall all over Bali, especially those selling suckling pig. Is it really raw blood? Before we go on to that discussion, let see what are the ingredients needed to make lawar. First, we need a complete combination of spices (called Basa genep ). The Basa Genep consists of onion, garlic, pepper, turmeric, chili, salt, ketumbar (I'll have to check the English translation later), fried onion, shrimp paste, and ginge