They dress their meat immediately after killing it, while it is still warm, which is conformable with the practice of the ancients as recorded in Homer and elsewhere, and in this state it is said to eat tenderer than when kept for a day:  longer the climate will not admit of, unless when it is preserved in that mode called dinding.  This is the flesh of the buffalo cut into small thin steaks and exposed to the heat of the sun in fair weather, generally on the thatch of their houses, till it is become so dry and hard as to resist putrefaction without any assistance from salt.  Fish is preserved in the same manner, and cargoes of both are sent from parts of the coast where they are in plenty to those where provisions are in more demand.  It is seemingly strange that heat, which in a certain degree promotes putrefaction, should when violently increased operate to prevent it; but it must be considered that moisture also is requisite to the former effect, and this is absorbed in thin substances by the sun’s rays before it can contribute to the production of maggots.

Blachang, a preservation, if it may be so termed, of an opposite kind, is esteemed a great delicacy among the Malays, and is by them exported to the west of India.  The country Sumatrans seldom procure it.  It is a species of caviar, and is extremely offensive and disgusting to persons who are not accustomed to it, particularly the black kind, which is the most common.  The best sort, or the red blachang, is made of the spawn of shrimps, or of the shrimps themselves, which they take about the mouths of rivers.  They are, after boiling, exposed to the sun to dry, then pounded in a mortar with salt, moistened with a little water and formed into cakes, which is all the process.  The black sort, used by the lower class, is made of small fish, prepared in the same manner.  On some parts of the east coast of the island they salt the roes of a large fish of the shad kind, and preserve them perfectly dry and well flavoured.  These are called trobo.

When the natives kill a buffalo, which is always done at their public meetings, they do not cut it up into joints as we do an ox, but into small pieces of flesh, or steaks, which they call bantei.  The hide of the buffalo is sometimes scalded, scraped, and hung up to dry in their houses where it shrivels and becomes perfectly hard.  When wanted for use a piece is chopped off and, being stewed down for a great number of hours in a small quantity of water, forms a rich jelly which, properly seasoned, is esteemed a very delicate dish.

The sago (sagu), though common on Sumatra and used occasionally by the natives, is not an article of food of such general use among them as with the inhabitants of many other eastern islands, where it is employed as a substitute for rice.  Millet (randa jawa) is also cultivated for food, but not in any considerable quantity.