'Gong'... or, The Last Bite!

This morning, I had soto for breakfast. A hot, yummy soto with slices of chicken and boiled egg.

As usual, I save my boiled egg for last. I did eat them (rice, chicken, and egg) at the same time, but I left behind a small part of my egg for the last bite.

Yes, it was my favorite part of the dish: the boiled egg.

As I can remember, I have been doing this since I was a child - saving what I love best from a dish for last. And I think it is quite common in Jogja.

As you may already knew, eating is not merely about being full. There are a lot more in it than that. And somewhere in the middle, there always culture and customs. Like what I have put out in the beginning, people didn't eat the food randomly. There are customs in it that we automatically followed.

The habit of saving the best for last does not only appear in my family, but almost everyone that I know - in Jogja. As a native, I found out about this habit during my years of growing.

Like yesterday, I had chicken noodle for lunch. Chicken noodle with meatball and fried wonton as crackers. My friend who accompanied me that noon ordered fried rice with chicken nuggets.

We ate two different kind of foods, with different kind of tools, yet there was a same thing that we did. We saved our favorite part of the dish for last. For me it was the meatball, and for my friend it was her nugget.

What we did is not a coincidence. We simply ate it in the same way. People in Jogja even have name for it. This 'best part of the dish that is left behind' is usually dubbed as 'gong'. And 'gong' for each person and each dish can be totally different.

I don't really know where, when, or why this habit emerged. But, for me, perhaps it has something to do with the culture of food rationing ages ago.

Though my family is always able to provide plenty of food at home, my mother implanted the idea of sharing foods with my brothers when we were children.

She usually served food (side dishes) at the same amount of her family numbers. This also taught us (children) not to eat too much and have respect on food. So, since our family consist of five people, she served five eggs or five slices of beef, or ten slices if she wanted us each to have two slices - depended on what she had cooked that day. If we were expecting guests then she would served more. 

Each person would have only one share and eating more than your share means that you ate other person's share. Of course, if I did not want it to happen to me, then I would not do it to someone else. It also would led us to labels like greedy or selfish.

Because I could not eat more than I should, I usually saved what I love for my last bite. And it was the most precious part of the dish. Since then, I guess, it became a habit.

But there is another reason of why people save a part of their favorite for last. It has something to do with your favorite flavor and having the flavor stayed longer at the tip of your tongue.

Like when I saved the chocolate on my choco-strawberry cake for last bite just because I love the flavor of chocolate better than strawberry. This reason usually fits not on a dish, but a single kind of food or dessert.

Perhaps this habit seems pointless and unnecessary. Yet it has become a custom that I myself sometimes did it automatically. Then again, I'm also doing it just because it is satisfying.

This came to a conclusion. Based on what I have wrote above, I can say that to see what is someone's favorite part of a dish, just look what they save for the 'gong', or their last bite.

Speaking of gong, do you usually do that, too?




*'Gong' also means a musical percussion instrument that takes the form of a flat metal disc which is hit with a mallet. And in Java, gong sometimes refers to something big or important.