ORIGINAL ARTICLE Open Access Tracing the origins of rendang and its development Fadly Rahman Abstract One of the most Indonesian popular food is rendang. In recent years, the popularity of this food goes upward to foreign countries after CNN’s polling in 2011, and 2017 placed rendang at the first number of the most delicious food in the world. Along this time, rendang is often associated with the culture of Malay and Minangkabau. Nevertheless, this research tries to trace the historicity of rendang and also the possibility of foreign culinary influences which shapes this Minangkabau’s food heritage. By employing the historical method supported with the reading of various primary sources, this article traces the trail of rendang and resulted fact findings related to foreign culinary influences in West Sumatra and also its development in becoming an Indonesian national food. Keywords: Rendang, Origins, Malay, West Sumatra, Minangkabau Introduction There are so many ethnic foods in the Indonesian culinary sphere. Of the many, rendang can be said to be an iconic one in the collective tastes of the Indonesians and has even become a part of the national identity, besides it also being associated with the Minangkabau culture of West Sumatra. It can be seen from how rendang is always pre- sented in typical Minangkabau restaurants in every city in Indonesia, always presented as one of the special dishes on every Lebaran (Islamic holy day), and is one of the common domestic menus in Indonesian households. In essence, this Minangkabau specialty food is liked by all social levels and ethnic groups in Indonesia. The image of rendang as an ethnic and domestic food then increased to the global level after CNN Go released a poll titled “World’s 50 Most Delicious Foods” in 2011. The world’s attention then was turned to this black meat preserved food. The results of the poll put rendang in the top-notch position as the most delicious food in the world. This has become a kind of “victory” for Indonesia in deal- ing with Malaysia, considering that this neighbor country once claimed rendang as part of its national food. In 2017, based on 35,000 votes on social media, out of fifty deli- cious foods in the world, CNN Travel in the “World’s 50 Best Foods” poll, again put rendang in the first place as the world’s most delicious food (Fig. 1)[1]. The rating as the most delicious food in the world itself is more on representing the tastes of foreigners in assessing the long-lasting and “crunchy” rendang; different generally with processed meat that is chewy or tough. Rendang is considered suitable not only as an official dinner, but also as a provision for travelers who need preserved food for weekly to monthly periods. Cooking rendang can also be interpreted as a surefire strategy to prevent meat from decay so that it can be eaten anytime and taken anywhere. The drying process for it to be durable is long and requires patience. But the fruit of patience can be felt from how im- portant, efficient, and economical the results of this meat preservation process are. Along with the growing popularity of rendang in the world, it also appeared in several publications which aimed to strengthen the image of rendang not only as a Minang- kabau identity, but also as the nation’s cultural heritage. The effort was seen from three works of rendang by Reno Andam Suri [2–4], namely The Story of Rendang, Rendang Traveler: Menyingkap Bertuahnya Rendang Minang (Rendang Traveler: Uncovering the Sorcerer’s Rendang Minang), and Rendang: Minang Legacy to the World. This © The Author(s). 2020 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. Correspondence: fadly.rahman@unpad.ac.id Department of History and Philology, Faculty of Cultural Sciences, Universitas Padjadjaran, Jatinangor, West Java, Indonesia Journal of Ethnic Foods Rahman Journal of Ethnic Foods (2020) 7:28 https://doi.org/10.1186/s42779-020-00065-1