Kuripan Haruan Festival Drives Effort to Save Banjar Culinary Heritage

RRI.CO.ID, Marabahan - Preserving traditional Banjar cuisine requires more than simply cooking it, but also recipes that must be recorded. That was the spirit brought by Agus Sasirangan, runner-up of the first season of MasterChef Indonesia.

He distributed printed recipes for haruan fish dishes free of charge to residents at the Panggang Kaluk Haruan Festival in Kuripan Subdistrict, Barito Kuala, South Kalimantan, in an effort to prevent ancestral recipes from disappearing. Agus travelled from Banjarmasin with cooking equipment and prepared ingredients.

He had the opportunity to cook haruan fish dishes inspired by Banua’s rich culinary heritage. “I have two recipe ideas, sweet and spicy caramel haruan, and sambal boom,” said Agus as he began his demonstration at the Kuripan Panggang Kaluk Festival on Thursday, August 27, 2026.

Women from the local community gathered closer. Some watched attentively, while others documented the moment through TikTok livestreams.

For them, Agus’s presence was an opportunity to see firsthand the skills of a chef widely known after finishing as runner-up in the inaugural season of MasterChef Indonesia. On the occasion, Agus also shared a message with the people of Kuripan that recipes must be written down and passed on.

Since 2012, Agus has regularly recorded his culinary recipes in books. Among them are Seribu Rasa (A Thousand Flavors), which documents a range of Banjar specialties, and Warisan Rasa (A Heritage of Flavors), a book dedicated specifically to his mother.

For him, preserving recipes is not merely about documenting ingredients and cooking methods. It is also an effort to safeguard memories, aromas, and flavors so that they do not disappear with time.

“Because people never wrote down the recipes, those inherited recipes eventually disappeared and the chain was broken,” he said, as quoted by Antara.

For this reason, when demonstrating haruan fish dishes in Kuripan, Agus did not stop at the cooking process. He also printed the recipes he created so they could be taken home by the women attending the event.

They could copy, learn, and recreate the recipes at home. In his view, every introduction to culinary heritage begins at the dining table.

“Parents actually educate, introduce, and serve traditional food from home, from the dining table,” said Agus.

The Barito Kuala Regency, Kuripan Subdistrict, and PT Adaro Indonesia joined forces to organize the Panggang Kaluk Haruan Festival. This effort essentially brought the intimacy of the family dining table onto a festival stage.

The festival serves as a space for the community to introduce and preserve one of the region’s culinary treasures. In addition to the competition, the festival also featured exhibitions by micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs).

A total of nine villages in Kuripan Subdistrict took part. Participants competed to prepare the best panggang kaluk using haruan fish for presentation to judges and the public.

Panggang kaluk is prepared in a distinctive way. The haruan fish is grilled in a curved, or kaluk shape, without removing its scales.

The upper middle portion of the fish is slit open and filled with spice seasoning, before being served with sambal acan badadah or grilled lemongrass sambal acan.

“This is one of our efforts to preserve Indonesian cuisine, so that our regional culinary specialties do not become extinct,” said Barito Kuala Regent, Bahrul Ilmi.

He added that this initiative is also intended to encourage the public to consume more fish as a nutritious food source.

For PT Adaro Indonesia, the region’s culinary potential does not stand alone. In 2024, the company conducted a village-potential study in Kuripan Subdistrict which found that villages in Kuripan have abundant fisheries potential that can be developed to support the local economy.

“We want panggang kaluk haruan to become a culinary icon sought after by tourists from outside the region,” said PT Adaro Indonesia CSR Department Head, Iwan Ridwan.

If that aspiration is achieved, the name Kuripan is expected to come to mind whenever people mention panggang kaluk. “If it becomes an icon, when people mention Panggang Kaluk, they will think, ‘Oh, this is Kuripan Subdistrict.’ That is the long-term goal we hope to achieve,” said Kuripan Subdistrict Head, Zulfikar. ***