Sweet and fresh desert after finishing the big meal, Rujak Manis is the best choice to close your banquet. As its meaning in Indonesian “Manis” for Sweet and Rujak for a kind of chopped fruit or vegetable salad, Rujak Manis is usually served in a plate or a bowl with slices of unrippen papaya, apple, bengkoang, melon, watermelon, pineapple, kedondong, unrippen manggo, etc The sweet sauce made from blended peanut mix with gula Jawa (brown sugar made from coconut, sugarcane, or aren-a kind of palm trees) is poured over the top of the piling fruits or you can dip the fruits with the fork into the plate full of that sauce. The taste of sour and sweet is mixed together to create delicious sensation. The fried tofu and mostly krupuk (deep fried snacks made from flour) are added to make it crunchy. Without krupuk the sweet taste of the sauce is not complete. People usually eat many more krupuk in a portion of Rujak Manis.
People who love hot and spicy meal can dip their spoon to a jar of chilli sauce and add it on the top of mixed fruit and sweet peanut sauce. They would pespirate much on their foreheads and noses after their tounges being burnt by the chilli. But it cannot stop them to add much more chilli sauce. Chilli addicted has just made them much more voracious.
Rujak Manis is very easy to made. Every mother can make it at home, unless they are not busy. Youngsters also can serve it not more than an hour. When they hangout in a friend house usually they have a small gathering called “Rujakan”. The word rujakkan is derived from rujak with suffix “-an” that means people in togetherness are trying to make Rujak. The girls usually peel the fruits and slice them into small sizes. They also serve chilli sauce or sambal in Indonesian by grilling the chilli. The boys grill the peanut with rocks in a cobek (rock plate). But now it is not so practical, so they use juicer machine. They melt the gula jawa in boiling water and mix it together with the peanut by adding some fried garlics. After all of the inggredients are served. They don’t hesitate to eat it together usually in circle, while the big plates of the fruits, sweet peanut sauce and sambal are in the centre. In Rujakkan they don’t use individual serving plates, but take the fruits by their hands or forks and dip them into the sweet sauce. Sometimes the fun and the feel of togetherness by mingling with friends or new friends will bring chemistry to go further for a potential love relationship.
Rujak Manis as it is so sweet in its taste also brings sweet memories of some who start their romance in Rujakan.
/// Written by Gigih Dwiananto, Indonesia
