PANGANDARAN, Indonesia — Susi Pudjiastuti was scooping up lunch with one hand, using her thumb and two fingers to extricate bones from a chunk of fish. With the other hand, she simulated grinding a stiletto heel into the ground.

“This is what I can do if the Chinese try to play tricks on me,” said Ms. Pudjiastuti, the maritime affairs and fisheries minister of Indonesia. “I can smile very nicely and then I can use my high heel.”

“Very sharp,” she added, popping the piece of fish into her mouth.

Suffice it to say that Ms. Pudjiastuti is not a conventional Indonesian woman, much less a conventional cabinet minister. She chain smokes, although Indonesia’s health minister — one of eight women in the cabinet of President Joko Widodo — has warned her that a public figure should not be seen lighting up.

Ms. Pudjiastuti likes her coffee black and her alcohol only in the form of champagne. “My family thinks I am a little bit of a nut case,” she said.