Food, the Earthy way

Fundamentals of Fijian food

Fiji has mostly a mix of Fijian and Indian people, and with that the people share each other’s cultural traditions and paradigms to the point where we start talking in each other’s languages and cooking each other’s food! This post could show you some of the fantastic food that Fiji has to offer, through drinking coconuts and eating fresh fish that was caught that very morning, however I’m going to show you some of the traditional styles of cooking that is shared through both cultures when it comes to big family feasts.

During my visits to Fiji, we always have a day where we get the family together to cook a large meal. This day starts off by going into the markets to get some fresh produce. And there isn’t much to it, when it comes to the ingredients, just meat and vegetables. One of the local ingredients that is considered a staple on a local’s diet, would be dalo. Dalo is one of the vegetables that are known to increase one’s bulk as shown via picture! But the beauty isn’t on the intricacy of the ingredients, more or less on how it’s cooked.

What the strongest of the strong eat, so I'm told!

Digging the hole for the Lovo

A fire constructed over the food

We take home what we’ve bought from the markets to cook in traditional lovo style of cooking. Lovo consists of cooking all the food underground to give it a lovely smokey and earthy flavour, hopefully a little less of the earth actually. Firstly we wrap all the ingredients that are lightly seasoned in foil and weave of banana leaves so as to keep in the heat and keep out the dirt during cooking. After that we find a spot to a dig a large hole and bury all the wrapped food there, gently covering it with a layer of dirt. 

The next step is to build a fire over the place we cook the food, and let it burn for a long while, then cover the fire with soil. In essence, it traps all the heat within the hole and the food will be slow cooked over a long period of time. Of course a major flaw of this type of cooking is that I don’t have any pictures of the actual food because we have to wait so long for it to be cooked and it’s just too tasty for it to sit there and to be looked at.

After the meal, a traditional custom the men commence is to drink grog. Grog or otherwise known as cava is a drink that is made from water and the roots of a medicinal plant that leaves the tongue numb after consumption. After consuming a lot of this drink, it leaves pretty much everything numb. You could say it’s just a traditional substitute for alcohol, but something that is loved by the locals.

Ah, another Earthy meal. Grog