Sets default system locale
You can see which languages are available by $ locale -a
On debian based systems you can set the locale by running update-locale LANG={lang} e.g. update-locale LANG=en_AU.utf8
It updates the file /etc/default/locale
On rhel based systems you can set default locale updating /etc/sysconfig/i18n There doesn't seem to be a command line tool to update this file?!?
Tested on Ubuntu, CentOS
node[:locale][:lang]-- defaults to "en_US.utf8"
Include the default recipe in your run list.