PEMPEK

Pempek is a food from Palembang made from tapioca and fish, Initially the fish used to make pempek is belida fish, but over time these fish are increasingly rare, then replaced with cork fish. Other fish used are river fish such as putak fish, tomak fish, catfish and bujuk fish. Also used sea fish such as mackerel, red snapper, machete fish, yellow tail fish, dencis fish, white tuna and sebelah fish. Pempek is served with a brown sauce and has a sour spicy taste called cuka or cuko. Cuko are made from boiling water plus brown sugar, mashed dried shrimp, crushed cayenne pepper, garlic and salt. Initially the cuko was always made spicy by the local community, but as the pempek developed outside the South Sumatra area, cuko was often made sweet so that the pempek food lovers who didn't like spicy can eat it too. Another complement to eating pempek is diced cucumber and yellow noodles.

The most famous pempek is pempek kapal selam, this pempek is large in size with boiled chicken eggs as its contents. In addition, there are also pempek lenjer, pempek adaan, pempek kulit ikan, pempek telur kecil, pempek keriting, pempek tahu, pempek pistel, pempek udang, pempek belah, pempek panggang, pempek lenggang and others. At present, pempek has been combined with modern ingredients such as cheese, beef, sausages and others. In addition to the fried and boiled pempek, there is also a variant of pempek which is served with gravy such as laksan, celimpungan, tekwan, and model. Pempek was originally only sold by sellers who walked on foot, now pempek are available in various restaurants and luxury shops that are specialized in selling pempek.