Indonesian village snacks on soil for better health
Published: Mar 18, 2010 00:46 Updated: Mar 18, 2010 00:46
TUBAN, Indonesia: In Indonesia, soil is not just a raw material for bricks and ceramics, it's also a snack that one family has been making for generations.
Tuban, in East Java Province, is the only village that produces "ampo," a snack made from clean, gravel-free dark earth collected from nearby paddy fields. Although there is no medical evidence, villagers believe the soil snacks are an effective painkiller and pregnant women are encouraged to eat them as it is believed to refine the skin of the unborn baby. There is no real recipe: makers of the snack use a wooden stick to pound the soil into a hard, solid mass. Rolls of dirt are then scraped off the with a bamboo dagger, baked and smoked in large clay pot for half and hour and then they're ready to serve. The better the quality of the soil, the better the taste of the snack, its creator, fifty-three year-old Rasima, says. Rasima, who like many Indonesians only has one name, makes ampo everyday to sell at the local market, just like her ancestors. She is the village's only ampo producer, and can earn up to $2 a day to supplement her family's income from farming.