Ketupat or packed rice is a type of dumpling

Dumpling

Dumplings are cooked balls of dough. They are based on flour, potatoes or bread, and may include meat, fish, vegetables, or sweets. They may be cooked by boiling, steaming, simmering, frying, or baking. They may have a filling, or there may be other ingredients mixed into the dough. Dumplings may...

 from Brunei

Brunei

Brunei , officially the State of Brunei Darussalam or the Nation of Brunei, the Abode of Peace , is a sovereign state located on the north coast of the island of Borneo, in Southeast Asia...

, Indonesia

Indonesia

Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...

, Malaysia, the Philippines

Philippines

The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...

 (where it is known by the name pusô in Cebuano

Cebuano language

Cebuano, referred to by most of its speakers as Bisaya , is an Austronesian language spoken in the Philippines by about 20 million people mostly in the Central Visayas. It is the most widely spoken of the languages within the so-named Bisayan subgroup and is closely related to other Filipino...

, bugnóy in Hiligaynon

Hiligaynon language

Hiligaynon, often referred to as Ilonggo, is an Austronesian language spoken in the Western Visayas region of the Philippines.Hiligaynon is concentrated in the provinces of Iloilo, Negros Occidental and Capiz but is also spoken in the other provinces of the Panay Island group, including Antique,...

, patupat in Kapampangan

Kapampangan language

The Pampangan language, or Kapampangan , is one of the major languages of the Philippines. It is the language spoken in the province of Pampanga, the southern half of the province of Tarlac and the northern portion of the province of Bataan. Kapampangan is also understood in some barangays of...

, or ta’mu in Tausug

Tausug language

Tausūg is a language spoken in the province of Sulu in the Philippines, in Malaysia, and in Indonesia by the Tausūg people....

), and Singapore

Singapore

Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...

.

History

It is made from rice

Rice

Rice is the seed of the monocot plants Oryza sativa or Oryza glaberrima . As a cereal grain, it is the most important staple food for a large part of the world's human population, especially in East Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, and the West Indies...

 that has been wrapped in a woven palm

Arecaceae

Arecaceae or Palmae , are a family of flowering plants, the only family in the monocot order Arecales. There are roughly 202 currently known genera with around 2600 species, most of which are restricted to tropical, subtropical, and warm temperate climates...

 leaf pouch and boiled. As the rice cooks, the grains expand to fill the pouch and the rice becomes compressed. This method of cooking gives the ketupat its characteristic form and texture of a rice dumpling. Ketupat is usually eaten with rendang

Rendang

Rendang is a dish which originated from the Minangkabau ethnic group of Indonesia, and is now commonly served across the country. One of the characteristic foods of Minangkabau culture, it is served at ceremonial occasions and to honour guests...

or served as an accompaniment to satay

Satay

Satay , or sate, is a dish of marinated, skewered and grilled meat, served with a sauce. Satay may consist of diced or sliced chicken, goat, mutton, beef, pork, fish, other meats, or tofu; the more authentic version uses skewers from the midrib of the coconut palm frond, although bamboo skewers are...

(chicken or beef or lamb in skewers) or gado-gado

Gado-gado

Gado-gado , also called Lotek for its cooked version - differed from lotek atah or karedok for its fresh and raw version of the vegetable covered with peanut sauce and pecel is an Indonesian dish comprising a vegetable salad served with a peanut sauce dressing...

 (mixed vegetables with peanut sauce).

Local stories passed down through the generations have attributed the creation of this style of rice preparation to the seafarers' need to keep cooked rice from spoiling during long sea voyages. The coco leaves used in wrapping the rice are always shaped into a triangular form and stored hanging in bunches in the open air. The shape of the package facilitates moisture to drip away from the cooked rice while the coco leaves allow the rice to be aerated and at the same time prevent flies and insects from touching it.

Varieties

There are many varieties of ketupat, with two of the more common ones being ketupat nasi and ketupat pulut. Ketupat nasi is made from white rice and is wrapped in a square shape with coconut palm leaves while ketupat pulut is made from glutinous rice

Glutinous rice

Glutinous rice is a type of short-grained Asian rice that is especially sticky when cooked. It is called glutinous Glutinous rice (Oryza sativa var. glutinosa or Oryza glutinosa; also called sticky rice, sweet rice, waxy rice, botan rice, biroin chal, mochi rice, and pearl rice, and pulut) is a...

 is usually wrapped in a triangular shape using the leaves of the fan palm (Licuala). Ketupat pulut is also called "ketupat daun palas" in Malaysia.

Ketupat is also traditionally served by Malays at open houses on festive occasions such as Idul Fitri

Eid ul-Fitr

Eid ul-Fitr, Eid al-Fitr, Id-ul-Fitr, or Id al-Fitr , often abbreviated to Eid, is a Muslim holiday that marks the end of Ramadan, the Islamic holy month of fasting . Eid is an Arabic word meaning "festivity," while Fiṭr means "breaking the fast"...

 (Hari Raya Aidilfitri). During Idul Fitri in Indonesia, ketupat is often served with opor ayam

Opor Ayam

Opor ayam is a chicken cooked in coconut milk from Indonesia, especially from Central Java. Opor ayam is also a popular dish for lebaran or Eid ul-Fitr, usually eaten with ketupat and sambal goreng ati ....

(chicken in coconut milk

Coconut milk

Coconut milk is the water that comes from the grated meat of a coconut. The colour and rich taste of the milk can be attributed to the high oil content. In many parts of the world, the term coconut milk is also used to refer to coconut water, the naturally occurring liquid found inside the hollow...

), ″ kari ayam″ accompanied with rendang (beef meat), sambal goreng ati (spicy beef liver), krecek (buffalo or beef skin dish), and sayur labu siam (chayote

Chayote

The chayote , also known as christophene, vegetable pear, mirliton, pear squash, christophine , chouchoute , choko , starprecianté, citrayota, citrayote , chuchu , chow chow , cho cho , sayote ,...

 soup).

Among the Moro (Muslim) groups of the Philippines

Philippines

The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...

, ketupat is served with an array of dishes including tiyulah itum, rendang, ginataang manok

Opor Ayam

Opor ayam is a chicken cooked in coconut milk from Indonesia, especially from Central Java. Opor ayam is also a popular dish for lebaran or Eid ul-Fitr, usually eaten with ketupat and sambal goreng ati ....

, kurma

Korma

Korma is a dish originating in South Asia or Central Asia which can be made with yoghurt, cream, nut and seed pastes or coconut milk; it is usually considered a type of curry...

and satay

Satay

Satay , or sate, is a dish of marinated, skewered and grilled meat, served with a sauce. Satay may consist of diced or sliced chicken, goat, mutton, beef, pork, fish, other meats, or tofu; the more authentic version uses skewers from the midrib of the coconut palm frond, although bamboo skewers are...

. It is served during special occasions such as Eid'l Fitr

Eid ul-Fitr

Eid ul-Fitr, Eid al-Fitr, Id-ul-Fitr, or Id al-Fitr , often abbreviated to Eid, is a Muslim holiday that marks the end of Ramadan, the Islamic holy month of fasting . Eid is an Arabic word meaning "festivity," while Fiṭr means "breaking the fast"...

, Eid'l Adha

Eid ul-Adha

Eid al-Adha or "Festival of Sacrifice" or "Greater Eid" is an important religious holiday celebrated by Muslims worldwide to commemorate the willingness of Abraham to sacrifice his son Ishmael as an act of obedience to God, before God intervened to provide him with a sheep— to sacrifice...

 and weddings.

Among Christian

Christian

A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...

 Filipinos

Filipino people

The Filipino people or Filipinos are an Austronesian ethnic group native to the islands of the Philippines. There are about 92 million Filipinos in the Philippines, and about 11 million living outside the Philippines ....

, pusô, as ketupat is locally known, is also traditionally used as a pabaon or a packed lunch

Packed lunch

thumb|A typical American bagged lunchthumb|[[Bento]] packed lunchA packed lunch is a lunch prepared at home and carried to be eaten somewhere else, such as school, a workplace, or at an outing...

, traditionally brought by workers, served with any selection of stews. Pusô is also widely eaten in the side streets of Cebu

Cebu

Cebu is a province in the Philippines, consisting of Cebu Island and 167 surrounding islands. It is located to the east of Negros, to the west of Leyte and Bohol islands...

 with pork or chicken skewers and other grilled selections.

Influence in geometry

Rhombus

Rhombus

In Euclidean geometry, a rhombus or rhomb is a convex quadrilateral whose four sides all have the same length. The rhombus is often called a diamond, after the diamonds suit in playing cards, or a lozenge, though the latter sometimes refers specifically to a rhombus with a 45° angle.Every...

 (diamond shape) in Indonesian

Indonesian language

Indonesian is the official language of Indonesia. Indonesian is a normative form of the Riau Islands dialect of Malay, an Austronesian language which has been used as a lingua franca in the Indonesian archipelago for centuries....

is called belah ketupat (literally "sliced ketupat") because its shape is similar to a ketupat when it is cut vertically. The term is officially used in mathematics in Indonesia.