In the City of Payakumbuh, at the center of the indigenous Minangkabau culture in West Sumatera, Indonesia, we entered Uni Emi’s humble house where on the floor were rows of 40 small plates filled with food.

We sat on the floor to begin Makan Bajamba, a traditional social custom where a group of people eats together, usually during festivals or the cycle of life ceremonies like weddings. The world record of Makan Bajamba was in nearby Sawahlunto where more than 16,000 people ate in a long row on one occasion.

 Image: Swan Kumarga

Uni Emi, the energetic 70-year old is a go-to resource person for those who would like to enjoy Minangkabau food or learn how to prepare them. Rendang, her specialty, is actually a cooking method for all kinds of main ingredients either beef, chicken, egg, or even green leaves. The main ingredient of choice is then mixed with coconut milk and a number of herbs and spices such as ginger, galangal, turmeric leaves, lemongrass, garlic, shallot, chili and cooked for long hours.

We visited Uni Emi on the first day of our 4-day food tour of Kelana Rasa Minangkabau in the Province of West Sumatera, covering the cities of Padang Panjang, Payakumbuh, Batu Sangkar, Bukittinggi, and Padang.

In general, foods in this province are savory and hot due to coconut milk, chili and a lot of herbs and spices as ingredients for dishes with beef, chicken, duck and fish. Vegetables such string beans, cassava leaves, ferns, jack fruits, stinky beans, and dog fruits are often cooked with coconut milk or just boiled without spices.

Image: Michael Lowe

Sometimes tummy management is forgotten when we encountered unique dishes like sate Padang and ampiang dadiah. Rather than using peanut sauce,sate Padang  is beef satay served with yellow sauce, a mix of onion, red chili, coriander, pepper, cumin, turmeric, galangal and ginger

Ampiang dadiah can pass as snack or dessert. It is yoghurt made from buffalo milk fermented in a bamboo served with flattened glutinous rice and palm sugar. Ampiang dadiah is an excellent traditional pairing of flavor (sweet and sour) and texture (soft and coarse).

The Province of West Sumatera, an hour and 45 minutes flying time from Jakarta to Minangkabau Airport, is not only famous for its food. The area attracts visitors for its culture and scenic natural palette.

Lembah Harau, the Harau Village, unfolded its color illusion where lush green ricefields lie between huge and tall brown granite cliffs amidst 7 pure white waterfalls up to 300 meters in height.

Wet with mists from the waterfalls we continued our second day to Bukittinggi with a lunch stop of fresh and scrumptious Minangkabau Food on a long table.

Such a fast service where customers do not have to wait long for the food to be cooked is famous all over Indonesia in Rumah Makan Padang (Padang Restaurant). In the province, however, eateries are not defined as Rumah Makan Padang.

As Arie Parikesit explained, there are three types of eateries in the area. Rumah Makan (restaurant) serves pre-cooked meals. Bofet (buffet) serves one-dish meals. Rumah Makan & Restoran (under one roof) serve food prepared on-site as well as pre-cooked meals. Therefore in our trip we always see those three types of eateries with the name of the establishments: Rumah Makan Pongek, Bofet Sianok, and Rumah Makan & Restoran Family.

Our Makan Bajamba on this second day was held in Nagari Canduang, a village at Kabupaten Agam inside a century old Rumah Gadang, owned by Arie’s friend Dimas and his family. Rumah Gadang, a traditional big house with a roof structure shaped like buffalo horns, is a residence and often used for important rituals.

 Image: www.pariwisata.padangpanjangkota.go.id

The group of 20 people was divided into 5 circles with us sitting on the floor in front of 5 large enamel plates filled with steamed rice. Each circle then appointed a leader, called sipangkah who distributed side dishes on one enamel plate, consisting of fried fish produced in rice fields, beef rendang, cabbage with egg soup, spicy petai (stinky bean) and its shell, jengkol (dogfruit) and sambalado tulang. The latter is a hot dish made from green chili mixed with green tomato, stinky beans, shallot, garlic, coriander, lime, oil and bone chips. To neutralize the spicy taste, the host provided some green vegetables, boiled string beans and chayote. We ate with our hands from the same plate, stinky beans shells, cow bone chips and all. This is a communal eating that strengthens kinship in the truest sense of the words.

Bukittinggi, our next stop, with year-round temperature of 16 – 25 C is a travellers’ delight. Its landmark Jam Gadang (the big clock) built in 1926 is said to be mechanically activated by a similar machine as The Big Ben in London.

Jam Gadang’s surrounding park is our meeting point on the third day, where we can view part of the Bukit Barisan mountain range that stretches for 1700 kilometers from the North to the South on the island of Sumatera. Jam Gadang is also a short distance from Ngarai Sianok, a green valley with two steep 100-meter height walls facing each other.

Visiting local market is a mandatory agenda in a food tour as market is a meeting point of cultures, sounds and colors of everyday life to meet the needs in a local community. The market has a special section named Los Lambuang, literally translated as Stomach Hall, a food court where vendors sell mostly Nasi Kapau, a plate of steamed rice with side dishes of choice. There are also some katupek and pical vendors offering rice cakes and mixed vegetables with peanut sauce. At Los Lambuang vendors put each side dish in a large bowl and display the selections in terraces up high in front of the visitors. One vendor can have as many as 20 side dishes to offer, comprising chicken or beef rendang, grilled fish, fried eel, fried chicken, and all kinds of vegetables such as curried jackfruits, bamboo shoots, and cassava leaves.

There was one more opportunity of Makan Bajamba, as some of Arie’s friends would like to show Minangkabau hospitality to his group. This time we visited Hesti’s house in Nagari Paninjauan, a village at Kabupaten Tanah Datar. Her father is a retiree who owns rice fields, fishponds and vegetable gardens.

Sitting on the floor we faced more than 50 plates with Minangkabau delicacies counting gulai kambing (lamb curry), gulai cubadak (jackfruit curry), nasi kuning (yellow rice), ayam singgang (chicken first boiled with coconut milk, herbs and spices, then grilled), keripik keladi (taro chips), spiced corn kernels, and ketan durian (sticky rice with durian).

It was raining when we went to the bus at twilight, ready for our trip to Padang, the capital of West Sumatra. Ten minutes into the trip as we looked to the left, a double rainbow draped the sky in front of Lake Singkarak. Perplexed we looked around. Drops of water on the bus windows dramatized the, three mountains, in the background: Marapi (2891m), Singgalang (2877m), and Tandikat (2438m).

The pleasant 4-day trip where we visited nature, culture, and food spots must come to an end. As with most of Kelana Rasa Food Tours, participants were reluctant to say good bye. Too busy to take care of the boxes of takeaways, we all promised to keep in touch electronically. It will not be difficult since we are bonded by the experience of Makan Bajamba in Payakumbuh, Nagari Canduang and Nagari Paninjauan. Not to mention a list of more than 100 foods tasted during the trip.

-----------------

Text: Amanda Niode

Images: Omar Niode Foundation, unless otherwise noted.