A Food Stall in Payakumbuh, 1911

Photo: Jean Demmeni/Universiteit Leiden

Eating is a basic human need, therefore culinary history is as old as the history of human civilization itself.

The photo above shows a food stall in a market in Payakumbuh, West Sumatra circa 1911.

We can see a simple food stall that is busy with shoppers. Uniquely, instead of sitting, the buyers were seen squatting on the wooden bench provided. Squatting has been a typical activity for the indigenous people of the Indonesian archipelago for a long time, as can be seen from the many photos that show people squatting on the side of the road.

Food stalls like this still exist today, such as pecel lele stalls and so on. Another thing that can be seen from the photo above is that the customers are only male and from the clothes it can be assumed that all of them are Muslim, typical of West Sumatra.