Long Banga is a remote Saban settlement in the upper reaches of the huge Baram Valley. sited next to the small Banga river, it has about 100 families, mainly of the Saban ethnic group with some Kenyahs.
About 100 years ago, the Sabans migrated from Indonesia and finally settled down in the Banga valley. Some old ladies are still able to tell stories of how they walked for months as young ladies across the border to visit their relatives. A few still have tattoos made by their Indonesian relatives to show.
The Sabans continue to have their exquisite cuisine, and develop their art of using bamboo stems to cook rice and many other dishes.
Their bamboo being really long and with good walls have good stems between the nodes which are really good as cooking vessels!!
These stems or internodes are cut with a closed base and an open end. Washed rice (with or without coconut milk) is slipped into the bamboo stem which is lined by daun long or irik.
Once an adequate amount of rice is poured into the shaft, and water is added, the opening is closed with tapioca leaves. The bamboo stem is then put over a slow charcoal fire, at an angle of about 60 degrees. The slow cooking, and the slow turning of the bamboo stem will result in a long tube of perfectly cooked rice.
This is Ludia Apoi's family home, Lemidin, which is also a great homestay in Long Banga.
Long Banga Sabans also produce some of the best organic rice in Sarawak, and may be the whole of Borneo.
Photo shows bamboo stem rice cooked by Ludia Apoil, homestay manager of Lemidin Homestay, Long Banga.
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