Family members help themselves, serving with a spoon and eating with right hands. There is less family gathering or ceremony of communal eating than in other cultures, but there is communal cooking and a strict hierarchy that determines one's role and comportment at the table. A meal may include a soup, salad, and another main dish . Whatever the meal, it is accompanied by at least one, and often several sambals , spice relishes that are mixed with the food. A light meal might consist of rice, some dried fish and a chile sambal.
Indonesian cooking is rich with coconut milk .
Beverages, sauces, soups, and even rice are prepared with it. Traditional spicing builds on a base of coriander, pepper, and garlic. Even ghee finds its way into many recipes. Surprisingly, cloves and nutmeg, flavors at the very heart of the spice trade, play a marginal role, at best, in Indonesian cuisine. They are more commonly used in local medicine.