In Tuban, a village in the East Java province of Indonesia, earth is used to make “ampo” a creamy snack believed to have medicinal properties.
According to Rasima, the ampo cook of Tuban, there is no real recipe to making this bizarre snack. All she does is look for clean, gravel-free soil, in the village’s rice paddies, pound it into a solid block, using a stick, and scrape rolls out of it, with a bamboo dagger.
The rolls of soils are then baked and smoked for an hour. Rasima then takes the earthy snacks to the village market, where she earns about $2, to supplement her family’s income. Tuban is the only earth-eating village on the planet. There are people, around the world, who enjoy eating sand, or kaolin, but not baked soil. Villagers believe ampo is a natural pain-killer, and that it makes babies’ skin softer, if eaten by their
pregnant mothers.
As for the taste of ampo, “it’s nothing special, it feels cold in my stomach” says one of the Tuban locals, who has been eating ampo, ever since she was a child.
pregnant mothers.
As for the taste of ampo, “it’s nothing special, it feels cold in my stomach” says one of the Tuban locals, who has been eating ampo, ever since she was a child.
