Cendol

Cendol ˈtʃɛndɒl is an iced sweet dessert that contains droplets of green rice flour jelly, coconut milk and palm sugar syrup. It is commonly found in Southeast Asia and is popular in Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei, Cambodia, East Timor, Laos, Vietnam, Thailand, Singapore, and Myanmar. Next to the green jelly, additional toppings might be added, including diced jackfruit, sweetened red azuki beans, or durian. Earliest written records of the word cendol or tjendol (Dutch spelling) can be traced to dictionaries and books of the 19th century in the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia). One of the oldest known records of the word tjendol is listed in the 1866 Oost-Indisch kookboek or East Indies recipe book. This book includes a cendol recipe with the title Tjendol of Dawet which indicates that cendol and dawet were already used synonymously at that time. In the dictionary Supplement op het Maleisch-Nederduitsch Woordenboek (1869) by Jan Pijnappel (Gz.), tjendol is described as a kind of drink or watery paste made from sago, coconut milk, sugar and salt. In Malaya, the word "chendol" was first mentioned in 1932 as one of the foodstuffs available in Kuala Lumpur as recorded in the Malay Concordance Project that collects Malay writings. There is a popular belief that the name "cendol" is related to, or originated from, the word jendol, in reference to the swollen green worm-like rice flour jelly; in Javanese, Sundanese, Indonesian, and Malay, jendol means "bump", "bulge", or "swollen". In most parts of Indonesia, cendol refer to the green rice flour jelly; while the concoction of that green rice flour jellies with coconut milk, shaved ice, areca palm sugar and sometimes diced jackfruit is called es cendol (in West Java) or dawet (in Central and East Java). The Indonesian dictionary Kamus Besar describes "cendol" as a snack made from rice flour and other ingredients that are formed by filters, then mixed with palm sugar and coconut milk (for beverage). The Malay dictionary Kamus Dewan similarly defines it as a porridge-like drink with long strands made of rice flour in coconut milk and sugar syrup.