A Sweet Taste of Kipo, a Bite of Memories

Kaypoh (Chinese Hokkien dialect: really curious) about kipo? Come to Kotagede Yogyakarta Market, the center of kipo. The government designated the traditional simple light snacks as an intangible cultural heritage (WBTb, or Warisan Budaya Takbenda) of Indonesia on 15 August 2019. Kipo, a local snack commonly known as jajan pasar or market snacks, is said to only exist in Kotagede, and only a handful of people know how to make it. Hmmm…, is it true?

At first, we didn’t believe we could only find a kipo seller in Kotagede. It is different now since you can buy pisang ijo (lit. green banana), a banana-based dessert from Makassar, in Jakarta. You’ll be able to shop for different snacks from various regions at the central souvenir shop. So, before heading to Kotagede Market, we stopped by Pathuk Market to look for kipo. None of the hawkers (street vendors) were selling them. However, we are not sure whether other markets sell kipo.

We bought the last ten packs of kipo at a traditional food stall at Kotagede Market. One pack contains five kipo the size of one knuckle of the thumb. Because of the small size of the kipo, one is not enough; five might or might not be enough. There must be a reason kipo is made small, maybe to make it easy to eat in small bite-sized snacks. One kipo is enough if you only want to taste it. The size makes kipo unique and distinctive, which is why people will remember it.

The combination of the sweetness of palm sugar, the savory of grated coconut, and the fluffiness of glutinous rice flour are just so delicious. Many traditional snacks, for example, mendut cakes, ku cakes, poci cakes, and dadar gulung (lit. rolled pancake), use enten-enten or coconut fiber fillings, a mixture of grated coconut and brown sugar. However, other ingredients make the taste of each snack different, hence the different names. Methods of cooking and packaging also make each confectionary unique.

In the past, confectionery or snack dish was simple and adjusted to the needs.

The name kipo is said to be short for iki opo? (what is this?), a short interrogative sentence that children usually ask when they see a nameless snack. People make kipo traditional wet cake by grilling.

The main ingredients are glutinous rice flour, grated coconut, and brown sugar. The other ingredients include suji leaves for coloring, tapioca flour for the coconut shell dough mixture, and betel lime for the skin dough mixture.

The manufacturing process is simple. Kipo makers make kipo skin of glutinous rice flour mixed with suji leaves and betel lime liquid extracts. The filling is entenenten or coconut, a mixture of grated young coconut, brown sugar, and tapioca flour, thoroughly mixed until smooth and not sticky. We grilled kipo after we put the enten-enten filling into the glutinous skin dough and shaped it into small pieces the size of a thumb. Kipo grilling traditionally uses a clay grill covered with banana leaves smeared with cooking oil. We must turn kipo over several times until cooked. people might have thought about that, but the result will be different, and kipo traditional snack has always been made traditionally.

Flipping kipo by hand is painstaking work, which often makes people impatient. One kilogram of glutinous rice flour can produce 80 servings or portions, with one serving containing 5-6 kipo wrapped in banana leaves. It takes one hour to make 25 servings. We can produce dozens of servings in one hour if only the grill is large.

Kipo is said to have been one of several types of confectionery for the nobles of the Mataram Palace, but it waned with the fall of the Mataram Kingdom and became a treat for the masses. In the 80s, kipo almost disappeared from the list of market snacks, especially in Kotagede, because nearly no one was producing it. Only Paijem Djito Soehardjo, a woman from Kotagede, never stops making kipo and participating in exhibitions and competitions to revive kipo’s reputation.

It began in 1986 when Bu Djito took part in a food exhibition made from glutinous rice flour at the Ambarukmo Palace Hotel. The Tourism Office and PHRI held the event, and Bu Djito won fourth place, as quoted from a book titled Kipo Bu Djito: Makanan Khas Kotagede Asli dan Pertama published by the City Library and Archives Office of Yogyakarta (2018). Since then, she has participated in many exhibitions, such as that at Manggala Wana Bakti Jakarta attended by Tien Soeharto, and the Yogyakarta Hadiningrat Palace Exhibition of Yogyakarta’s Traditional Art and Rare Food (1990). Kipo is becoming more and more well-known, not limited to Yogyakarta, let alone Kotagede. Kipo has become a mandatory snack for guests, weddings, and various events.

Mbah Mangun handed over kipo making to her daughter because her eyesight was getting worse. Since then, the family-owned kipo stall on Jalan (street) Mondorakan Kotagede has also been named Kipo Bu Djito, referring to the name of the creator and maker.

When Bu Djito was getting too old, her daughter named Istri Rahayu continued the Kipo Bu Djito business in 1991. The name of Kipo Bu Djito remained because that name has been known and become a trademark. Istri continued her late mother’s efforts to maintain Kipo’s reputation by participating in various competitions and exhibitions. Therefore, it is not surprising that Kipo Bu Djito won second place in the “Wisata Kamus,” or Campus Tourism traditional food competition held by the Yogyakarta Institute of Community Service and Dharma Wanita IKIP Yogyakarta in 1996.

Kipo Bu Djito is undoubtedly the bestselling kipo. When we visited the shop in Kotagede, the kipo sold out. On the table are three large containers filled with hundreds of packages of kipo, all of which are customers’ orders for celebrations.

“If you come earlier, you might still get it,” said Bu Djito’s grandson, whom we met at his shop. What I can do next time is we will come early.

Reading a book that mentions kipo existed in the Mataram era and is now a specialty of Kotagede, makes Peter Munz’s words in Historical Narrative (1997) about people’s needs for the past true. The reason people are curious about things from the past and other people’s experiences is that their values become a basis for strengthening their identity. That’s how–I think–kipo survives. People are happy to taste it because it brings back memories.