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Thecuisine of Timor-Leste consists of regional popular foods such aspork,fish,basil,tamarind,legumes,maize,rice,root vegetables, andtropical fruit.[1] East Timorese cuisine has influences fromMalay andPortuguese dishes from itscolonisation by Portugal. Flavours and ingredients from other former Portuguese colonies can be found due to the presence of Portuguese soldiers from other colonies in Timor-Leste.
As agriculture is the main occupation in Timor-Leste, the primary food is rice, which is cultivated widely in this country. Apart from rice, other staple food items that are cultivated in Timor-Leste include sweet potatoes, maize, cassava, and taro. These primary staples are supplemented with beans, cabbage, spinach, onions and cowpeas.
The second category of food consists of poultry, pigs, and goats. Most homes in Timor-Leste raise their own food animals for meat. Fish is also a source of animal protein in this country as fishing is also an important occupation after agriculture.
Timor-Leste's crops rely on the rains that come following the annual dry season. This leads to a period of poorfood security called the "hungry season" from November to February due to the unpredictableclimate. Many households depend on their own production of food because of the erratic climate conditions, such asdroughts.
Many families subsist onakar, which is a widely available food source for the poor. It is driedpalm tree bark, beaten into a powder, mixed with water to form ajelly and then cooked over fire. This leads to cases where nearly 58% of children under the age of five suffer from chronicmalnutrition.[2]
Coffee is a majorcash crop for the island nation, accounting for 90 percent of its non-oil exports, while 46 percent of East Timorese households rely solely on coffee for their income.
The crop has grown in the country for centuries. It accounted for half of the country's trade when it was a Portuguese colony in the late 1800s, but during 24 years of Indonesian occupation the bumper business was neglected when the military took over – prices fluctuated and many coffee plantations were battlefields so the quality of beans worsened.
By the war's end, agricultural experts estimated two generation's worth of farming knowledge was lost and some plantations were abandoned. But because the trees got little attention the pesticide and fertiliser-free groves are popular for organic coffee lovers. Today, the coffee is known as the golden prince of Timor-Leste agriculture - worth $10 million a year, 46,000 coffee farms employ one-fifth of Timor-Leste's population but it is a major battle to encourage farmers to improve the quality of Timor-Leste's agriculture.[3]
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Media related toCuisine of East Timor at Wikimedia Commons
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