Roti Buaya, The Wedding Icon from Jakarta
Roti Buaya, a Meaningful Bread
Marriage is a sacred event and Roti Buaya (Crocodile
Bread) holds important parts in traditional wedding ceremony especially for
Betawi people who known as the local people of Jakarta. This unique bread
surely interesting as wedding gift since the shape is extraordinary and there
are also special meanings which carried by Roti Buaya for the bride and
bridegroom.
so, why this bread is very important as a gift for wedding
ceremony? Well, the old people of Jakarta believes that Roti Buaya is a symbol
of faithfulness and toughness which very important for marriage couple to build
their family in the future. Crocodile is an animal that only mating once in a
lifetime and crocodile also has high determination to survive during all
seasons.
Furthermore, Roti Buaya also has meaning as a symbol of good spiritualism of marriage couple since the old people of Jakarta believes that there is a mythical “White Crocodile” which lives across the Ciliwung River in Jakarta. Since centuries ago the White Crocodile always protects the harmony in nature so the water of Ciliwung River can be used by all people who lives either in Jakarta or other supporting cities of Jakarta such as Bekasi, Bogor and Depok.
Roti Buaya as a Special Gift
Besides as an icon of a wedding, Roti Buaya also popular as a special gift and some of Bread Factories in Indonesia realize this business opportunity. They create their own style of Roti Buaya and sold it directly to the customer either for special occasion or home-party event. As we can see, if you came to Jakarta and visit some bread stores at mall there are customized Roti Buaya. The custom bread usually smaller than the original one or vise versa (it is very big in size and i think you need to ask more than 10 persons to break down the crocodile bread into pieces).
Most of Roti Buaya (traditional) parcel wrapped with plastic
and tied up with ribbon as an accessories while the modern parcel of Roti Buaya
is using a box with colorful theme. The good news is Roti Buaya now available
in various flavours and children likes it so much. At the modern bread store
you can find Roti Buaya with chocolate flavour, vanilla, strawberry and even
coffee flavour (the original one is only available in sweet flavour).
With more taste feature and unique shape, the existance of
this bread is arise and most of baker said that the high demand usually came
after Ramadhan, exactly at the month of Syawal which is also known as the
celebration month of the Moslems. This high demand trend is related to the huge
numbers of Moslem that live in Indonesia and most baker can produce up to 100
pieces of Roti Buaya (standard size) in a day at Syawal month.
The price of Roti Buaya parcel could be vary due to the size
of the bread itself. The packaging type of the bread also give effect to the
selling price. Commonly, we can buy a small size of Roti Buaya (20-30cm) for
IDR 7500 while for the medium size (50-60cm) it is around IDR 20000. For the
large size (120-150cm) the price could reached IDR 50000 – 75000. Those are the
prices for the bread only and we need to spend about IDR 30000 – 50000 for the
packaging service but if you like to wrap it at home then no need to pay for
the packaging service.
Roti Buaya and Pop Culture Irony
Although there are noble meanings which related to Roti Buaya and Buaya (Crocodile) as an animal but Pop Culture which grows among modern society (especially the youth people) in Jakarta has placed Buaya into something bad such as “Buaya Darat” (This phrase refers to a man that can’t be trusted in a relationship especially marriage) and this is an irony if we look back into what the old people of Jakarta said about “Buaya” (Crocodile). Another irony about Buaya is a phrase “Air Mata Buaya” (Tears of Crocodile) and this phrase has meaning that someone who cried only to cheat someone else (fake emotion). Those ironic phrases simply can be heard every day (in Indonesia) through song lyric, comic, sticker, poster and also the TV shows.
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