Oncom

Oncom is a fermented food and a traditional staple of Sundanese cuisine of Indonesia. It comes in red and black forms and is closely related to tempeh, since both are fermented with mold. Black oncom uses Rhizopus oligosporus, while red oncom uses Neurospora intermedia var. oncomensis, the only traditional human food made with Neurospora. It is usually made from by-products of other foods, such as soy pulp left after making tofu, peanut press cake, cassava tailings or coconut press cake, which makes production economical. Cooks fry it as fritters, steam it in banana leaf as pepes, or roast and mix it with rice as nasi tutug oncom, and it fills comro and arem-arem. Sanitation matters, because aflatoxin-producing molds can contaminate peanut press cake.