From Fish Hawker to Billionaire

The air smells of fish. But the four men hard at work at Sukiran's house in Pacitan regency, East Java, seem to ignore it. They continue on with their task: separating tuna flesh and skin from the bones. By the looks of it they are quite adept. In one day they can slice three to five tons into boneless fillets. That goes into a grinder with tapioca, garlic, salt, pepper and flavoring, and the resulting elastic dough becomes filling for tofu cakes.

Now it is the female workers' turn to insert the dough into cakes which have been slit in the middle. After that, the cakes are cooked in boiling, seasoned water. The male workers take back over. "It's to cook the tuna dough well and make the tofu more piquant," said Dwi Santoso, 24, one of the men.

August 5, 2014