History of Rendang

The origin of rendang could be traced to Sumatran Minangkabau region. For Minangkabau people, rendang has been part of their daily life and traditional ceremony beyond historical records. The rendang making spread to regional Malay culture, to Mandailing, Riau, Jambi, across the strait to Malacca and Negeri Sembilan where large numbers of overseas Minangkabau resides. Today rendang is considered as local dish in both Sumatra and Malay peninsula.

Andalas University historian, Prof. Gusti Asnan suggests that rendang began to spread across the region when Minangkabau merchants and migrant workers began to trade and migrate to Malacca in 16th century. “Because the journey through the river waterways in Sumatra took much time, a durable preserved dry rendang is suitable for long journey.”^[14] The dried Padang rendang is known as a durable food. It is well preserved and good to consume for months even left in room temperature, a perfect travelling logistics for a long journey.

The popularity of rendang is widely spread way across its original domain because of the merantau(migrating) culture of Minangkabau people. The overseas Minangkabau leave their hometown to start a career in other Indonesian cities as well as neighboring countries. They work in offices, trade textiles, start their own businesses, and some might open Padang restaurant, a Minangkabau eating establishments that ubiquitous in every Indonesian cities. These Padang restaurants are credited to intoduce and popularize rendang and other Padang food dishes across Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, as far as Europe and United States.

In Minangkabau culinary tradition, there are stages on cooking meat in spicy coconut milk. Its category is according to the liquid content in cooked coconut milk, ranges from the soupy most wet to the most dry: Gulai — Kalio — Rendang.^[15] The ingredients of gulai, kalio and rendang is almost identical with the exceptions that gulai usually uses less red chilli pepper and more turmeric, while rendang uses richer spices. If pieces of meat cooked in spicy coconut milk and stop the process right when the meat is done and the coconut milk has reached its boiling point, you have gulai. If the process continues well until the coconut milk is partly evaporated with brownish colored meats, then you have kalio. When the process continued hours more until the liquid completely evaporated and the color turns to dark brown almost black in color, then you have rendang. According to this notions, the real rendang is those with less liquid contents. The colors also indicate the differences; gulai have light yellow color, kalio is brown, and rendang is dark brown. However today, there are two kinds of rendangs commonly found: dried and wet.