"You're not a Moluccan, if you can't eat papeda!"

That's what they say....
Back in the days when I was younger, pure and innocent and obviously crime didn't exist....right :-P
Almost every weekend I stayed at my grandparents and once in awhile we ate papeda, something that looks like wallpaper paste and tastes like...well..like nothing. Unless it was eaten with vegetables, spices and fish. It was made from potato starch, in the Moluccas it's traditionally made from sago or cassava. Only in the Moluccas it's possible to use sago and cassava, because the water in/around the islands contains a lot of minerals and that's why the water can get more hotter then for example in the Netherlands.

And there you have it on a beautiful sunny day along the coast in Suli, Ambon, papeda for lunch. Made by a wonderful woman named Lily who's perhaps the best cook on pulau Ambon I can tell ya that! It looked so good, it smelled so bad, and tasted amazingly! A ball turned around and taken out a ceramic pot with bamboo "tweezers" dropped subtle into my bowl and vegetables and vegetable stock soaked in hot spices got added. We all lapped/sipped the papeda out of our bowls, yes we lapped/sipped it out of our bowls with all the noise you can imaging 'cause that's the way you eat papeda. No shame in the game.