{"id":1479,"date":"2010-03-13T21:18:10","date_gmt":"2010-03-13T11:18:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/bart-allen\/?p=1479"},"modified":"2010-10-05T22:12:34","modified_gmt":"2010-10-05T12:12:34","slug":"life-in-png-whats-for-dinner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/bart-allen\/2010\/03\/13\/life-in-png-whats-for-dinner\/","title":{"rendered":"Life in PNG – What’s for Dinner!"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ll start off by putting your mind at ease.<\/strong> We haven’t had to eat any plump, juicy grubs – yet!!\u00a0 That time may come and we’ll be sure to tell you about it!!<\/p>\n

We really eat pretty normal stuff here.\u00a0 The main difference is that it usually just takes longer to make.\u00a0 Here are a few examples:<\/p>\n

Suppose we want to have pizza<\/strong>.\u00a0 Now back in the States we most often made our own pizza at home, but there was always the option of getting a Digorno one from Wal-mart or going to Little Caesar’s if we were in a hurry.\u00a0 Here, homemade is the only option!\u00a0 So, I have to make the crust, shred the cheese (usually we can’t find mozzerella so we just use whatever kind we can find), slice the pepperoni…\u00a0 Then comes the fun part – heating up the oven to 425 to make the already hot house even hotter!!\u00a0 That’s okay though.\u00a0 Pizza’s worth it!<\/p>\n

What about if we want tacos<\/strong>.\u00a0 Tortillas – have to make them.\u00a0 Lettuce – sometimes available, more often can’t find it (but there’s lots of cabbage so we could substitute that).\u00a0 Cheese – no shredded cheese here so we have to shred whatever kind of cheese we can find.\u00a0 Refried beans – there are two options for that.\u00a0 We have seen them in the store, but since we are not willing to pay $4 for one can, I’d just have to make those too.\u00a0 Sour cream – have to make that by mixing vinegar in with a little box of thickened cream (as long as the store has the cream).\u00a0 Salsa – we have found that at the store and we are using it sparingly\u00a0 so it lasts.\u00a0 Anything else? – oh, the meat.\u00a0 We can get pretty good ground beef\u00a0 here and we have seen taco seasoning a few times at one store.\u00a0 Otherwise we’d just have plain meat.\u00a0 Now we’re ready to eat the tacos!\u00a0\u00a0 Are you hungry yet?<\/p>\n

Yogurt – have to make it.\u00a0 Brownies – make them from scratch.\u00a0 I could go on but you probably get the picture.
\n(Speaking of pictures – you can click on any of the photos below to see a larger image.)<\/p>\n

All that is if we are eating at home.\u00a0 But, you might be wondering what we eat if we are out visiting in the village. \u00a0 Here goes!!<\/strong><\/p>\n


\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

A few weeks ago we visited the village area of several of the men who work here on the center.\u00a0 Despite our request that they not make a big deal of us coming for dinner, their wives were getting a feast ready!!\u00a0 The\u00a0 “table” was covered with several types of bananas, sweet potatoes, pumpkin, several kinds of greens (pumpkin leaves, ferns and other leaves), corn, potatoes and some other things.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The wives beginning to prepare the food<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Some<\/a>
A closer look at the "greens"<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There were three main dishes they were cooking for us (all over an open fire).<\/p>\n

The first was a soup made mostly from greens and\u00a0 pitpit (a type of wild sugar cane) cooked in coconut “grease”.\u00a0 They break open a coconut and then scrape out the inside.\u00a0 Then they soak the shaved coconut in water, squeeze it and then strain it.\u00a0 It is the strained coconut water (“grease”) that they use to cook most all of their food in.\u00a0 This time they also added a ramen noodle soup packet to the soup mixture (we don’t know if they did that just for us or if that is something they would normally do).<\/p>\n

\n

\"Luke<\/a>
Luke taking a turn scraping coconut<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The second dish started off looking like a bunch of flour or meal in a bowl.\u00a0 It is called saksak flour and it comes from the sago palm.\u00a0 It’s quite a process to make (and we’re learning more about that right now).\u00a0 They then poured some water into the bowl and mixed it by hand til it was like mush.\u00a0 After that they poured boiling water over the mush and stirred it.<\/p>\n

\"Adding<\/a>
Adding water to the saksak flour<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\n

\"Are<\/a>
Are you wondering when she last washed her hands?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"The<\/a>
The end result - commonly referred to as "saksak snot" by other missionaries!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We were each given a bowl with a clump of the rubbery, slimy orange stuff you see above.\u00a0 Over that they poured some of the soup.\u00a0 It was a little weird eating pumpkin leaves and ferns but the soup did taste good.\u00a0 It was the saksak snot that we had a hard time getting to go down!!\u00a0 It’s hard to believe that this is a favorite dish for some people around here!<\/p>\n

The final dish consisted of the remaining vegetables cooked in more coconut “grease” over the fire.<\/p>\n

\"Most<\/a>
Most of this food is from their gardens or found in the surrounding bush<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Now this is not a typical, everyday meal for most villagers<\/strong>.\u00a0 They just prepared so much food because we were coming to visit.\u00a0 Most people here eat only twice a day with the main meal in the evening.\u00a0 For breakfast or lunch they might just have bananas roasted over the fire.\u00a0 Rice, which is a common food in many Asian countries, is a luxury here.<\/p>\n

\"Bananas<\/a>
Bananas for lunch!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\n

We know this is getting long but we did want to show you another picture of a meal we had with a different family.\u00a0 Once again, they put out quite a spread – sweet potatoes, taro, rice, several kinds of bananas and more.\u00a0 But the highlight of that meal was fish, squid and lobster that one of the guys caught the night before using his speargun.\u00a0 It was quite an experience for the boys to see whole fish, eyes and all, sitting on the plate!\u00a0 They ate it without complaining and thought it tasted great – especially the squid!<\/p>\n

\n

\"The<\/a>
The seafood was delicious - caught in the water seen in the background<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\n

\n

Is your mouth watering yet?\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Thanks for reading! <\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

\n

\n


\n<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ll start off by putting your mind at ease. We haven’t had to eat any plump, juicy grubs – yet!!\u00a0 That time may come and we’ll be sure to tell you about it!! We really eat pretty normal stuff here.\u00a0 The main difference is that it usually just takes longer to make.\u00a0 Here are a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":392,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1479","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-family","7":"category-ministry","8":"entry"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/bart-allen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1479","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/bart-allen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/bart-allen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/bart-allen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/392"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/bart-allen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1479"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/bart-allen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1479\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/bart-allen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/bart-allen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/bart-allen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}