PNG Food

To hold a fundraising evening for PNG together with food is quite easy as the people live very simply, eating mostly what they grow in their gardens.  Rice is the staple diet, so rice salad is very popular perhaps with tuna or corned beef and whatever vegetables are available.  Fresh fish (if you live near the sea) and, for desert, fresh fruit – watermelon, pineapple, pawpaw, mango, bananas which all look very attractive laid out on banana leaves.

Pigs are slaughtered for festivals and very special occasions and the whole village gathers together to share food and entertainment.  Chicken rearing is a relatively new venture so chicken is only eaten occasionally.

Grace is said before every meal and guests are invited to help themselves first, one of the oddities of a meal when I was in PNG is that you also helped yourself to desert which you put on the same plate, but I guess when you don’t have running water you don’t make unnecessary washing up!

In the Highlands, where the temperature is not so hot, they can grow a variety of vegetables; many of which are familiar to us: beans, cabbages, various root vegetables and sweet corn.  Overall their diet is very plain, and the people are often thin and malnourished as they eat very little protein.

A young man was asked whether he would like to live somewhere else; “Oh No” he replied, “when I have eaten the food in my garden then I can go into the jungle and hunt.”

On visiting Simbai, a Highland parish, back in 2007, we walked over the mountain to visit a neighbouring parish.  Halfway we were greeted by a group of villagers who had heard we were coming.  They had prepared sugar cane, avocados, bananas and cups of tea.  We soon learnt to drink our tea black because there was no fresh milk.  Coconuts provide a tasty drink, the top is sawn off and you drink from the coconut, a bit awkward at first, but very refreshing.

Enjoy a PNG get-together (Bung Kai) with a simple meal: pork/chicken, various rice salads, any vegetable and fresh fruit.  What could be easier?

Win Sutton