ABSTRACT
A discussion of Chinese dietary culture in Indonesian society requires an expose of the ethnic Chinese people themselves, who were and still are the bearers of this culture. The history of the ethnic Chinese in Indonesia, and especially in Jakarta, dates back to the period prior to the colonization by the Dutch, which ended with the Proclamation of Independence of Indonesia on 17 August 1945. According to western and Chinese historical documents Chinese settlements already existed prior to the establishment of Jayakarta (in 1527), the local name of Jakarta before the Dutch (who arrived at the end of the sixteenth century and moved their base to this port city in 1618) changed it to Batavia, and the reference for the start of its recorded history. It is not intended in this chapter to go into the history of the ethnic Chinese in Indonesia. Suffice it to note that the Chinese have had a long and at times turbulent history in Indonesia and in Jakarta in particular (Mackie 1976; Coppel 1983; Suryadinata 1985; Blusse 1988; Williams 1996).
