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Samoan Material Culture

Resume of cooking processes

Resume of cooking processes

From the detailed enumeration of the cooking recipes, an idea can be formed of the comparative values of the different foods and the uses of the various utensils in Samoan domestic economy.

The outstanding value of the coconut in cooking is evident. In some form or other it enters into combination with every vegetable food and most marine flesh food except the larger fish. The meat of the immature nut and the liquid enter into vaisalo and otai. The grated mature nut is used with masi penu and otai. But it is the expressed coconut cream that is invaluable in so many preparations. Cooked with them as fai'ai, it enters into 17 different dishes. As the oily niu tolo, it is indispensable to the most important made up dish, fa'ausi. It provides the only sauce for meat, vegetables, and puddings. Without the coconut, Samoan cooking would be resolved into its primary elements.

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The talo demonstrates its position as the chief vegetable. It provides the basis of the Samoan diet, the most valued chiefly dish either as talo taisi or fa'ausi talo, and the only green vegetable.

The method of cooking in the oven (tao) is the essential one with all foods. Grilling (tunu) has a limited use. The method of heating by adding hot stones to a liquid contained in a wooden bowl is seen, however, to be important. It enters into the heating of coconut cream for palu sami and fa'ausi talo, two very important dishes. It is used in one form of breadfruit taufolo, next in importance to fa'ausi talo from a ceremonial point of view. It is the cooking method in coconut vaisalo, arrowroot vaisalo, piasua, and the turmeric malasina. Both vaisalo and piasua are invaluable foods for the sick. The use of the wooden bowl as a cooking vessel in this method must also be noted. Likewise the iofi tongs receive additional use. The use of the impervious banana leaf wrapper around food containing liquids must be stressed. It is a primitive form of broiling—a process within a process. The entirely liquid coconut cream and pigs' blood is thus cooked without a vessel even of wood.

Of the domestic utensils, the tauanga strainer is indispensable in the preparation of the extensively used coconut cream. The alava only comes into use with the preparations in which immature coconut meat is used.

The coconut grater is also indispensable. The coral grater is seen to have had more use than might be apparent at first thought. It was formerly used with uncooked talo to prepare talo valuvalu, and fa'ausi talo, and uncooked yam for ufi valuvalu, and with the banana and plantain for fa'i oloolo, soa'a oloolo, and fa'ausi soa'a. The sennit grater enters only into the preparation of the turmeric malasina.

As regards pounders, the two forms have only one use each; the green breadfruit autu'i for breadfruit taufolo, and the coconut leaf midrib ulu lapalapa for talo taufolo. Breadfruit taufolo, though important for guests, plays no continuous role in every-day diet.