Baby Food Around The World: Indonesia

We always love to hear about which foods are traditionally served to babies in different countries and cultures. We’re sometimes inspired to experiment and come up with new recipe ideas – and it’s also interesting to see how some foods that parents in the west may be apprehensive about introducing are given from a very early age elsewhere!

We thought we’d share with you a glimpse at the typical menu of a baby in Indonesia today, courtesy of mum Debby  from Jakarta. She told us…

It’s common in Indonesia to give red/white rice porridge mixed with chicken’s liver and vegetables such as spinach and carrot to a  6 month old baby.

Many mothers give oranges to their babies before they are 1 year old.

But the very first food is usually  the water the white rice was cooked in.  It’s called “air tajin” (in english: water tajin).

Of course, it’s often recommended by pediatricians here in the west that citrus is avoided for the first year, generally because it’s considered to be acidic and may trigger a rash). And the concept of serving the rice water is completely new to us – we’ve never heard of that before.

Thanks, Debby, for sharing that little taste of Indonesian style cuisine for tiny diners – and if you’d like to add to this post by telling us about the foods typically served to babies in YOUR corner of the world, then please do go ahead and leave a comment!