Serving Suggestion Issue #03 by Almer Mikhail and Shaquille Noorman (Eds.)

In preparing certain dishes, time is the most important ingredient there is. Even in the earliest human civilisations, we learned to harness time—to ferment, to age, and to let natural processes run their course. During the process of making the third edition of Serving Suggestion, we joked around about how finishing this magazine takes longer than normal. At some point, we likened the process to making century eggs. But after everything, we’re happy that we’ve finally been able to get this ‘dish’ done.

In this issue’s Sharing Table, we speak with cultural researcher Hilmar Farid on Indonesia’s cultural identity, gastronomy, and publishing. Elsewhere, Alex Todaro and Nicole Vindel present “Take-away: Degustations on Grief”, a visual essay tracing six stages of grief through suspenseful, food-driven scenes. Justin Noah Chua and Moira Tirtha reflect on taste, cultural domination, politics, and identity, while Foodways delves into the history of tea in Indonesia and its present-day landscape.