The Dish That Lasts for Weeks: Rendang

Rendang is beef simmered in coconut milk and spice paste for hours, until the liquid is gone and the meat is coated in a dark, dry, almost-caramelised crust. It is not a curry that was thickened. It is a curry that was cooked all the way past the end. This is the story of why it exists. We begin in the highlands of West Sumatra, where the Minangkabau made a dish that could travel without spoiling, and follow the merantau tradition that carried it across the region wrapped in banana leaf. We take the pot apart stage by stage, from wet gulai to kalio to true dry rendang, and we visit the week in 2018 when one cooking-show judge said the word "crispy" and an entire region replied at once. 🌐 More stories at backstory.asia CHAPTERS 0:00 Four hours in the mountains 0:27 Origins in the highlands 1:04 A dish that could travel 1:55 Three stages in one pot 2:48 Shared heritage 3:31 The week the internet agreed 4:24 More than food 5:01 backstory.asia ⚠️ ABOUT THIS VIDEO This episode is AI-generated. The narration is a synthetic voice and every image and clip was made with generative AI. Treat the visuals as an artistic impression, not documentary footage - dishes, places, tools and details may differ from the real thing. We research and source-check the history before we write it, but mistakes are still possible. If you spot one, tell us in the comments and we will pin the correction. Backstory Asia unwraps the origins, history and hidden facts behind Asia's food, objects, culture and traditions - told through countryball animation. Subscribe for a new episode, and visit backstory.asia for the longer write-ups and sources. SOURCES The Minangkabau of the West Sumatran highlands and rendang as a preservation method for travel; the merantau tradition of leaving home to seek experience, and rendang carried wrapped in banana leaf; one of the earliest written mentions appearing in Malay manuscripts from the fifteen hundreds, hedged because the record is not firm; the three stages of the pot, gulai (wet), kalio (medium) and rendang (dry), and kerisik, the toasted coconut paste; CNN readers' polls in 2011 and 2017 that placed rendang first in a list of the world's most delicious foods; the 2018 MasterChef UK episode in which a judge criticised chicken rendang for not having crispy skin, and the shared Indonesian and Malaysian response that followed. #rendang #indonesia #malaysia #minangkabau #countryballs #history #aseanhistory