Indonesians Love Chicken, Bird Flu Scare or Not

As Others Panic, Citizens Accept Life With Virus and Do Not Alter Their Diet

By Alan Sipress
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, April 30, 2006; Page A18

JAKARTA, Indonesia -- Here at the heart of the epidemic, where bird flu continues to rip through poultry flocks and more people now succumb to the virus than anyplace else on Earth, the lunchtime crowd at the Ayam Goreng Suharti restaurant can't get enough of the chicken.

The ravenous and the merely peckish cram nearly every one of the two dozen tables. They hunch over their plates, tearing off chunks of the succulent meat with their hands, licking their greasy fingers. While international health experts continue to sound the alarm about the prospect of pandemic and U.S. officials warn ominously that the disease could appear in American birds by fall, the overriding concerns at this Jakarta eatery turn on whether to order the chicken fried or grilled, with chili or spices; to have half a bird or to splurge on a whole one.


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