REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, SOLO – The first Jenang Festival is held today in Solo to liven up the 267th birthday of the city. Concentrated in Ngarsopuro Corridor, the festival gives 10.000 jenang -or Solo traditional snack- freely to everyone in the city.
“I want to make an event that can attract tourists to come to Solo. That’s why this event will be held every year. I hope the festival could be a new tourism destination,” the initiator of the festival, Slamet Raharjo, said on Thursday.
He added, the same culinary festival had been conducted in other countries. However, jenang has more value in Solo because its philosophy and its ranging variety. The committee designs the event as society base activity. “Jenang is provided by society for society. If they can do it consistently, it is not impossible to become an international event,” he said.
The festival aims to promote jenang as a traditional food from Solo. It also aims to conserve Javanese culinary. Jenang is a sweet food popular in Indonesia. It is basically made from coconut milk and rice flour, then cooked into porridge-like, let it firmer. It tastes sweet and sticky. Yummy!
Each kind of jenang represents a symbol of certain meaning, such as "jenang abang putih" or red and white jenang. While red is a symbol for mother, then white is a symbol for father. Therefore, "jenang abang putih" is a symbol of a child. In a birthday ceremony, "jenang abang and putih" is served to remind people of loving each other as love between mother and father to their child.
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