Treffer: Diversity of sambals, traditional Indonesian chili pastes.

Indonesia, a multicultural country, exhibits high diversity of cultural heritage. Sambal, for example, a traditional chili paste or sauce usually consumed as condiment, has been an integral part of Indonesian food culture for centuries. Initially, sambal was prepared using native ingredients such as pepper and ginger. Cayenne pepper (Capsicum annuum), a native American plant, was incorporated in sambal recipes in the sixteenth century and since then, it has been the major ingredient of Indonesian sambal. Each region of Indonesia has its own traditional versions of sambal, distinguishable by its ingredients or production methods. The aim of this review is to identify and establish a profile regarding the diversity and geographical distribution of 110 different varieties of sambal in Indonesia reviewed from various cookbooks. The island of Java exhibits the highest amount of sambal variants (64.5% of sambal variants found in Indonesia) among other islands. More than 80% of the identified Indonesian sambals are prepared by crushing and cooking the ingredients. Some also are served as raw sambals in all islands in Indonesia, except Java and Sumatra. Besides chili pepper, sambal production often involves the use of diverse secondary ingredients that gives a unique identity for every sambal recipe (e.g., fruit, local food, aromatic herbs, etc.). Nowadays, sambal is produced both traditionally for direct consumption and modernly in food industries, thus resulting in commercially packaged sambals with long shelf life. Sambal also has potential to contribute to the nation’s economic conditions, mainly by supporting the development of small and medium enterprises. With regard to novelty, this is the first international review discussing the diversity of sambals in Indonesia in a thorough and comprehensive manner. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Ethnic Foods is the property of BioMed Central and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)