Lompong Sagu: The Sweet Delicacy of Sumatra Barat

Indonesia is a multicultural nation that have thousand varieties of local culinary in each region. From the western point to the eastern point of Papua, Indonesia is known by its delicacy of food. Typically, the dishes are different from each province because of some factors, such as, geographical or agricultural diversity, cultural or ethnic diversity, and the spice preferences. 

In Sumatra island, the local culinary are mostly featured sambal either it cooked with the dishes or on the side of the food. In fact, some of the spiciest cuisines are from Sumatra island, specifically Padang, Sumatra Barat.

However, even though Sumatra Barat is known for spicy foods, like rendang (spicy beef stew) or gulai (it looks like chicken curry), it also has a sweet delicacy called ‘lompong sagu’. Lompong sagu is a type of Minangkabau traditional cake, it made from a mixture of sago flour, a certain type of banana (pisang kapok), coconut, coconut milk, and palm sugar for the filling inside. 

This cake has a sweet taste with dense and chewy texture. It is wrapped with banana leaves and then grilled traditionally with coals because burning flames can easily burn it.

According to Ibu Yet, the woman who sells lompong sagu, it is not hard to sell this traditional food in the middle of the emergence of various new-modern types of food in the market. She stated this sweet delicacy of Sumatra Barat is still preferred by the people.

Furthermore, she also said that a lot of people buy her products to be brought to their homeland as a hand gift. Even, not only the local but also international tourists are fond of this local traditional cuisine and find it unique and delicious.

Lompong sagu is an authentic traditional food from Sumatra Barat, however it is hard to find it on the street because only a few sells it, including Ibu Yet. If we look closer to the shape of it, it looks the same with the other delicacy of Sumatra, which is lepat or lapek or lapet. Both of them are wrapped under banana leaves. 

The difference is lepat or lapek or lapet is steamed not grilled like lompong sagu. Here are the pictures of both of the sweet delicacy of Sumatra island:

(Lompong Sagu. (Source: budaya-indonesia.org))

(Lepat or Lapek or Lapet. (Source: Cookpad.com))

The uniqueness of lompong sagu is that it is only available in Sumatra Barat. One of Ibu Yet’s customers from Jakarta said that there is no one sell lompong sagu anywhere except for here in Sumatra Barat. In brief, lompong sagu can remind and heal the Minang migrants of their longing for their hometown. For it holds their childhood memory and it was an icon of Sumatra Barat for its popularity. 

Because of its uniqueness, the name of this food is dedicated in a song by Oslan Husein, with the lyrics, ‘lompong sagu bagulo lawang’.

As it is a traditional food with its sweet delicacy, lompong sagu deserves more recognition from the Sumatran people or Indonesian people in general. Because this sweet delicacy will go down if the younger generation do not take part in the preservation of this food or worse it will be extinct. 

So, in order to keep it alive, we should recognize and appreciate our own food like our life depends on it. We shall keep lompong sagu alive, serving, and striving like many of our other local culinary.

Interview with Ibu Yet

Group 1:

Silvia Elmalia Putri

Sarah Salsabila Ismael

Siska Febriana Sitompul

Fajar Nur Alhamdi