Searching for 'lamang tapai' at Bedug Fair
Jon Afrizal, The Jakarta Post, Jambi
The Bedug Fair, being held for the third consecutive year, has become a tradition in Jambi specifically for the fasting month of Ramadhan.
The fair starts at 2 p.m. and will peak between 4 p.m. and 5 p.m., when people from all walks of life flock to the fair to kill time until the breaking of the fast.
The fair, named after the bedug, a traditional drum used typically by mosques, winds up each day when the crowd automatically disperses around 6 p.m. after the call to maghrib, the dusk prayer, the moment they break their fast.
Hundreds of food kiosks are positioned along 500 meters of Jl. Mritu in the city center, with vendors assembled into four rows facing each other. Most of the food and beverages sold at the fair are sweet, which is said to suitable for breaking the fast.
The vendors not only hail from Jambi, but also from nearby cities like Palembang and Padang, and most of them have gathered here since the birth of the fair.
A pempek (fish and prawn dumplings) seller from Palembang, Mangcek Herman, 28, said it was his third time to set up his stall at the fair. Every day, he sells as many as 125 to 150 pieces of pempek, which is eaten with a tangy, sweet-and-sour condiment, at Rp 500 a piece.
"It costs me Rp 300 to make a piece of pempek," he told The Jakarta Post.
Besides Herman are Etek Ros, 35, who sells lamang tapai, a West Sumatran specialty made of glutinous rice mixed with coconut milk and cooked in a 50-centimeter long bamboo tube, then eaten with sweet fermented black glutinous rice.
According to Etek Ros, or Aunt Ros in the Minangkabau dialect, she sells 20 to 30 tubes of lamang daily, each weighing about 7 ounces and sold for Rp 6,000, while she sells tapai at Rp 2,000 for a small package.
Other delicacies like lupis ketan and padamaran, eaten with melted palm sugar, are available, including side dishes to be eaten with steamed rice, such as the popular beef rendang and tempoyak ikan patin, catfish cooked with fermented durian.
Jambi market management head Surihamsyah said the Bedug Fair was set up especially to accommodate food vendors. However, only 143 vendors occupy the 300 kiosks available for lease at Rp 237,000 during Ramadhan.
Clothes and sundry goods vendors have been provided stalls along the one-kilometer stretch of Jl. WR Supratman, which can accommodate 600 vendors.
Even so, only 150 vendors occupy the stalls thus far at a rent of Rp 155,000 to Rp 255,000 for the month.
The high cost of renting a kiosk at the fair has been a turn- off for potential vendors, and has thus left the fair looking empty.
Still, Surihamsyah was optimistic that the fair would contribute as much as Rp 37.5 billion (US$4 million) to the regional budget, the same as last year.