Friday night takeaway, with a conscience [WFJ #50]

Rendering rendang unto Frome

Welcome back to The WFJ’s series on Frome’s hero dishes and drinks. So far we’ve sampled Hesperian’s scampi fries (RIP), Lo Rapitenc’s escalivada, HydeAway’s negroni, and Hamper’s reuben. This time, we’re onto Indonesia’s favourite dish, and how it found an audience in Frome.

When an earthquake struck the Indonesian island of Sulawesi in September 2018, claiming the lives of 4,340 people and uprooting 206,524 others, the first thought among disaster responders in West Sumatra was to ship one and a half tonnes of beef rendang 1,500 miles to those displaced.  

This wasn’t the first time of asking. Or the last. Whether it’s an earthquake, landslide, or tsunami, West Sumatrans have a habit of responding to the plight of fellow Indonesians with, most likely, hundreds upon hundreds of packages of dried beef rendang.