One Cassava Away One Cassava Away

Cooking together with my classmates in our foster parents’ house is one of the things I didn't expect would happen. But sometimes unexpected events take a turn to be better It all started at the start of year eight. The teacher had announced that our year’s Integrated Learning project will involve living together and doing activities that our foster parents do daily The teacher had also announced that we had to do community services. We did some researching and settled on a painting activity But everything changed when we arrived there and found out that our group is going to live in two separate hamlets. We decided to do our community service separately Dinda, Jemima, and I hadn’t planned anything up until the second day We just finished doing our home industry, and we had made too many klemet and kemplang, so we decided to give them to our neighbours

It all started when we were doing our 'Home Industry', making klemet and kemplang Klemet and kemplang are traditional food, both being based out of cassava and coconut. Klemet is a sweet, steamed dish made out of cassava, coconut, and brown sugar. While kemplang is a savory, fried dish made out of cassava, coconut, spices, garlic, that tasted a bit like nuggets Dinda, Jemima, and I were joined by a few of our classmates at Pak Yono, our foster parents’ house to do our 'Home Industry'. My friends and I started by peeling and washing the cassava and coconuts thoroughly We then continue by grating and mixing all of the coconut and cassava Our foster parents helped us grate our cassava and coconuts, since a few of us cut our fingers grating them. We had been mixing our cassavas when a few teachers came to monitor us. We separated the dough into two and added the rest of the ingredients to make kemplang in one plate and klemet in the other We had finished mixing when one of our foster parents told us that the steamer was ready. We then hurriedly wrap our dough with banana leaves and put them inside the steamer. While we were waiting for the klemet to cook, we started shaping our kemplang We made various shapes and letters, we even made our initials with them. After we were done, Dinda and Jemima took them to the kitchen to be fried, we all took turns and it was a lot of fun.

We quickly realized that we had made so much, and there’s no way we could finish them all since we had been nibbling and stealing bites while we were shaping them We were so full already, the teachers had taken some and there were still a lot left. So we decided to give them to our neighbours, since it was near iftar and we had a lot of muslim neighbours. We packaged them in plastic bags and gave them out At first I was scared since it was impromptu and we hadn’t packaged them nicely It was also a really common dish there, and i was worried people would decline them. But fortunately, everyone accepted them, they even thanked us for them I was really grateful and happy Everyone was happy and we ended with a lot of memories and learnt a lot of lesson (VGN)