Translations:Indonesian cuisine/147/en

Many Indonesian traditional customs and ceremonies incorporate food and feast, one of the best examples is tumpeng. Originally from Java, tumpeng is a cone shaped mound of rice surrounded by an assortment of other dishes, officially chosen as Indonesian national dish in 2014. Traditionally featured in slametan ceremonies, the cone of rice is made by using bamboo leaves woven into a cone-shaped container. The rice itself can be plain white steamed rice, uduk (rice cooked with coconut milk), or yellow rice (rice coloured with kunyit, i.e., turmeric). After it is shaped, the rice cone is surrounded by assorted dishes, such as urap vegetables, fried chicken, semur (beef in sweet soy sauce), teri kacang (little dried fish fried with peanuts), fried prawns, telur pindang (marbleized boiled eggs), shredded omelette, tempe orek (sweet, dry fried tempeh), perkedel kentang (mashed potato fritters), perkedel jagung (corn fritters), sambal goreng ati (liver in chilli sauce), and many other dishes. Nasi tumpeng probably comes from an ancient Indonesian tradition that revers mountains as the abode of the ancestors and the gods. Rice cone is meant to symbolise the holy mountain. The feast served as some kind of thanksgiving for the abundance of harvest or any other blessings. Because of its festivities and celebratory value, even now tumpeng is sometimes used as an Indonesian counterpart to birthday cake.