How to eat lumpia

I stand in front of sushi table in Keller’s IGA grocery store waiting for my shushi guy making my lumpia.There are so many variations of stuffed vegetables in lumpia around asian countries such as Thai, China, and Indonesia. Lumpia is a deep fry stuffed spring roll with cooked bamboo shoots and chopped shrimps. But this time, I the he substitutes the bamboo shoots with cabbage, which make it very different from the original lumpia I used to have at home.

In Indonesia, we eat lumpia as snack or dessert. You can find a variety of lumpia in the other countries such as Thai and China. If you like Chinese food, probably you already know about it, some Chinese restaurants serve lumpia as a complement of their dishes.

The best lumpia in Indonesia can be found in Semarang, Central Java, where most of my relatives from my mom's side live. I went there almost every summer on school holiday to stay with my cousins who are all girls. Semarang has a strong influence of Chinese heritage; it is a small port in central Java where the Chinese people came hundreds of years ago to trade and stay.

Lumpia can be found at street vendors in Semarang, where we can watch the vendor made it from scratch. Lumpia Semarang is so famous, and it became a trademark of the city. There are two kinds of lumpia, the lumpia basah (basah means wet, the lumpia is ready to be served without frying) and lumpia goreng (deep fried lumpia).

The traditional lumpia had fresh long thin sliced bamboo shoots, shrimps, green onion, pepper, and nutmeg, wrapped with thin rice wrapped, deep fried in hot vegetable oil.

After golden brown, the vendor would put it on top of a plate with banana leave cover that would cried out of the hot lumpia thrown over it. While they are frying the lumpia, some other people serves us fresh Javanese tea, and a plate for each where we could pour out the sauce on it.

The sauce preparation is not complicated either. In Semarang, the main ingredients for the sauce is what we call Tauco, or fermented soy sauce, it has a deep salty taste to it, with a thick texture with whole soy beans in it. Other ingredients are spices that you sauted with the tauco.

It is fun to watch the process of making lumpia. It won't take long for those lumpias to change position in our plates and then our mouths. You gotta be cautious though because hot lumpia would do similar thing to your tounge as other hot stuffs.

Traditional lumpia had a thick sour sauce, but I would add hot sauce too on mine.

Afternoon is the best time to eat Lumpia, as your stomach craves for a snack in between meal. A cup of hot tea is the perfect combination for the snack. Pour the sauce on top of it or dip the sauce to the lumpia. It usually arranged on a sheet of banana leaf, served with the sauce, small green chilies, and cucumber pickles.