Before I travelled to the Moluccas my uncle told me what food and drinks I really had to try. Not only because some of it isn't available in the west but also because of the environment you are isn't the "perfect" environment to eat certain dishes. One of the dishes I really had to try was rudjak; a salad with a variety of raw fruit such as guava, mango, papaya, pineapple, kedongdong, belimbing (star fruit) and many others.
The salad dressing consist out of ground peanuts with thick red sugar. Sounds weird, I know! And it's eaten out of a (wrapped around) piece of paper or on a little plastic plate. But my uncle was really crazy about it, when he started talking about rudjak, his eyes started to shimmer and it was like he was tasting it again. So it was one of the things on top of my list that I had to do, eating rudjak. "But not just rudjak" my uncle said; "nooooo, when you're going to eat rudjak you have to get it in Natsepa. "There you'll have a long row of little tents between the coast and the Salahutu district. And in each tent there's one person who makes/sells rudjak with all the patience they have, because time obviously doesn't excist in the Moluccas. It was a feast to sit along the water and watching how my rudjak was made with a magical sunset in the background. "Oh how many chilli peppers I wanted in the salad?" I said that one was enough and hoped that it wouldn't be to spicy, and so I tried my first rudjak in Natsepa. It was incredibly tasty and after trying it on other locations I came to the same conclusion; that yes, the best rudjak is found in Natsepa!
