Indonesia's mie lethek noodles, or "ugly" noodles, have a distinctive dull grayish color when cooked. We visited a factory that still makes them using 2,000-year-old methods — one of only two such factories left in the country.
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00:00 (upbeat music)
00:02 This dough will soon be transformed
00:04 into the ugliest noodle in the world.
00:07 Or at least that's what locals here
00:09 in the village of Bantul in Indonesia call them.
00:13 Mi lettuk means ugly or dull noodles,
00:16 mostly because of their gray color when cooked.
00:19 This is one of the only two factories in the world
00:23 that still make them using methods
00:25 that can be traced back more than 2000 years.
00:29 And there's nothing simple about how they're made.
00:32 It takes days of grinding, stomping, cooking, and drying.
00:37 And if the factory doesn't sell them all in 10 days,
00:40 it could lose a whole batch.
00:43 So what makes these noodles so special?
00:45 We visited the Mi Lettuk Zapu Surpana factory
00:51 to see how this family business is still standing.
00:58 The cassava root that gives the noodles their color
01:01 and taste is also toxic when eaten raw.
01:04 So the flour needs to be soaked for two days.
01:09 The flour is then ground beneath a large stone
01:22 for about an hour.
01:23 It's so heavy it needs to be pulled by an ox.
01:28 Every few minutes, workers scrape it clean
01:31 of any sticky flour, while Salijo continues
01:34 to shovel the flour into the path of the stone.
01:37 He also adds water to the mix to get the right consistency.
01:42 At 70 years old, he is a master,
01:51 well accustomed to the physical demands of the job.
01:56 He presses down with his feet to firm up the dough.
01:58 He can feel when it's ready.
02:01 It should be strong and not fall apart.
02:04 When it hardens, he cuts the dough into eight-inch cubes
02:16 with a special knife called a sabit.
02:18 He then places them on a two-by-three-foot bamboo tray.
02:25 As with most tools, workers make them by hand.
02:28 The trays are heavy, and with a little help,
02:35 Salijo puts them in a steam oven.
02:37 After 90 minutes, they start to look for signs
02:43 the dough is ready.
02:44 While it's in the oven, the dough rises,
02:53 but it's still not ready for shaping into noodles.
02:56 It needs to go back to be ground one more time.
03:00 The factory has three oxen.
03:04 They are old, so while one works, the other two rest.
03:08 Mukido oversees the whole process,
03:17 making sure the dough doesn't fall apart.
03:20 (speaking in foreign language)
03:24 He's been working here for 20 years.
03:30 The factory opened here in the small town of Bantul
03:43 in the 1970s, providing jobs to a community
03:46 otherwise dominated by farming.
03:49 (speaking in foreign language)
03:52 Salijo has been at the factory for 10 years.
03:55 He collects the ground dough into bags,
03:58 each weighing 40 pounds.
04:00 Finally, it's time to shape the noodles.
04:05 This is the only step that isn't done by hand.
04:09 Each lump of dough is enough to make 100 noodles,
04:14 with each string around two feet long.
04:18 This machine was brought in 20 years ago,
04:21 but it often breaks, bringing production to a halt.
04:24 Workers spread the noodles on bamboo trays
04:38 and make sure they aren't tangled.
04:40 (speaking in foreign language)
04:47 (upbeat music)
04:50 The noodles cook in the oven again for about one hour.
04:55 The doors don't seal properly,
04:59 so workers use rags to plug any gaps
05:02 and stop the steam from escaping.
05:04 Then they're hung to cool for two hours.
05:10 Each batch makes around one ton of noodles.
05:14 (upbeat music)
05:17 In the morning, workers separate them by hand
05:21 into portion sizes.
05:23 (speaking in foreign language)
05:27 Workers lay the noodles on large bamboo trays.
05:39 The factory has 100 of them,
05:41 and each one can be filled with up to 45 portions.
05:44 The drying process takes about a day,
05:52 but if it rains or it's too humid,
05:54 there's a risk the whole batch could be ruined,
05:58 so someone always has to be on watch.
06:01 (speaking in foreign language)
06:08 (upbeat music)
06:10 That's because the noodles have no preservatives,
06:18 so if they don't dry fast enough, they could go bad.
06:21 (speaking in foreign language)
06:36 Juri Murianto inherited this factory
06:38 from his uncle 23 years ago.
06:40 (speaking in foreign language)
06:46 Chinese settlers and traders
06:52 likely brought noodles to Indonesia back in 2000 BC,
06:56 and with them came many of their methods.
06:59 Locals here say the first noodle factory in Bantul
07:03 was opened in the 1940s by a Muslim preacher from Yemen.
07:07 They started making them with cassava
07:09 because his wife, a Chinese migrant,
07:11 noticed it was abundant in the region.
07:14 But the rapid rise of mass-produced instant noodles
07:18 in the 1970s pushed traditional manufacturers
07:21 out of the market.
07:23 Today, Indonesia is one of the largest producers
07:26 and consumers of instant noodles.
07:31 Juri's factory is one of just two left in the country
07:34 that make mie letek the traditional way.
07:36 Once the noodles are dry,
07:40 workers pack them into 10-pound bags.
07:42 Each one will sell for around $5.
07:45 That's half the price of Indomie,
07:49 Indonesia's most popular brand of instant noodles.
07:52 Buyers like Dalia come directly to the factory
07:58 to select bundles of noodles to sell at the market.
08:00 The broken strands are reused in the dough
08:04 or fed to the oxen.
08:06 The Bantul district has become well-known for its noodles.
08:19 They're even fit for a president.
08:22 Barack Obama tried mie letek
08:24 during a visit to the region in 2017.
08:27 (people chattering)
08:30 Chef Harianto is one of the oldest mie letek vendors
08:47 in the area.
08:48 His father started the business before Harianto was born,
08:52 and he still follows the same recipes today,
08:56 cooking the noodles in chicken broth with vegetables.
08:59 Harianto uses the same charcoal stove his father used.
09:14 He says it gives a powerful aroma and better taste.
09:18 (people chattering)
09:21 The noodles are chewy in texture and plain in taste.
09:38 Almost all of Harianto's customers are local.
09:42 Despite costing half the price,
09:46 mie letek can't compete with the big instant noodle
09:49 manufacturers in Indonesia.
09:51 And Judy isn't sure how long he'll be able
09:54 to keep his business,
09:56 one of just two remaining in the country, alive.
10:00 His children have moved to larger cities
10:02 and have little interest in taking on the business.
10:06 (speaking in foreign language)
10:10, (laughing) (speaking in foreign language)
10:12 (laughing)
10:37 Meanwhile, Mukido is more upbeat about the future.
10:40 (speaking in foreign language)
10:45, (speaking in foreign language)
10:48 (speaking in foreign language)
10:52 (speaking in foreign language)
10:56, (speaking in foreign language)
11:01 (upbeat music)
11:03 (speaking in foreign language)
11:07 (upbeat music)
11:11 (upbeat music)
11:13 (upbeat music)
11:16 [MUSIC]