Cuisine of Vanuatu

The cuisine of Vanuatu (known in Bislama as aelan kakae) incorporates fish, root vegetables such as taro and yams, fruits, and vegetables.^[1] Most island families grow food in their gardens, and food shortages are rare.^[1] Papayas, pineapples, mangoes, plantains, and sweet potatoes are abundant through much of the year.^[1] Coconut milk and cream are used to flavor many dishes.^[1] Most food is cooked using hot stones or through boiling and steaming; little food is fried.^[1] Since Vanuatu is one of the few South Pacific regions influenced by the outside world, Vanuatu's food has a multicultural nature.^[2]

Core Ingredients

Vanuatu foods have several core ingredients used such as yam, taro, banana, coconut, sugarcane, tropical nuts, pigs, greens, fowls and seafood. Native people in Vanuatu usually grow most of their food except luxury foods such as rice and tinned fish.^[3]

Traditional drink

Kava, a traditional non-alcoholic drink, is extremely popular in Vanuatu. A once-prestigious beverage brewed from Piper methysticum, it is commonly drunk at dusk, before dinner, mostly by men but increasingly by women. While it has mild narcotic and relaxing effects on the individual, it is mostly appreciated for the relaxed social atmosphere it is traditionally associated with, both in urban and rural areas, in the context of the nakamal.

Traditional foods

The national dish of Vanuatu is lap lap.^[4] Lap lap contains yam, banana and manioc smothered in coconut cream and cooked in a traditional oven.^[5]

Flying foxes are also captured, kept in cages, and eaten as a stew ^[6]

Coconut crab is one of the unique foods of Vanuatu. However, many restaurants in Vanuatu have stopped serving this dish as the crab is at risk of becoming an extinct species.^[6]

References

External links

• "Voila Vanuatu" (article on ni-Vanuatu cuisine)

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