Chicken with jackfruit

This is perhaps the most famous of the traditional recipes of central Java. This area is one of the most densely populated in the world, fertile, intensively farmed, and very beautiful. It has been the seat of empires and sultanates; its courts and wealthy merchant houses refined and perfected the arts of music, poetry, philosophy—and cooking. Gudeg, however, is a popular rather than a courtly dish. The best Gudeg is to be had in the old royal city of Yogyakarta, or so the people there will