Fun Facts about Indonesian cuisine

• Indonesia cuisine was heavily influenced from Chinese immigrants. Tea, cabbage, soy beans and noodles made their way into the local cuisines and even the stir-fry method was introduced to the locals. Nasi goreng, one of Indonesia's most popular dishes, was adopted from a Chinese tradition of frying leftover rice in the morning.

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• Indonesia ranks number 2 in the world for instant noodle production just behind China with Indonesia's very own Indomie is actually the number one producing company of instant noodles in the world. 

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• The islands that were formally called the "The Spice Islands" are now called Mocullas. They got their nickname due to the abundance of aromatic plants that grew all over the archipelago, especially nutmeg and cloves which largely drove the spice trade. This resulted in the world's first  circumnavigation of the world by Portuguese explorer, Ferdinand Magellan with a goal of finding the first western route to the islands in search for the spices for Spain. After three years of exploring, they returned back home to Spain with 26 tons of spices. Five ships initially set sail and only one returned home from the journey. After deducting the lose of those ships a net profit of 500 gold ducats remained.