Oh, the Foods You Will Eat!

There was an important harvest festival called the Mid-Autumn Festival or Chinese Moon Festival that the Taiwanese, Chinese, and Vietnamese celebrated. From what I understand, it's akin to Thanksgiving. A friend from Andrew's work gave us the wonderful and interesting gift of these Mooncakes. They have an egg yolk in the center of them. I am woefully unaware of Asian festivals and their meanings. Maybe an Asian post would change that.

In other food news, here is a beautiful display of foods we recently consumed and enjoyed—two papaya (that we let ripen a little too much, I think; for some reason papaya smells bad to me), the green breadfruit (the white spots are waxy sap that Marshallese use as their gum—I tried it and it was like chewing wax that had a slight tinge of flavor), and the local banana.

I started boiling breadfruit for last night's dinner, and when my Marshallese teacher came she said that it's better to steam it. But, with it boiled and mushy, I could still make a really good soup. Coconut curry breadfruit soup. It is honestly one of the most delicious soups I've ever had.

Here's how you make it:

1. Climb a tree and chop off a breadfruit. It should be yellowy-green and look like a globe.
2. Boil the breadfruit in salted water. I peeled my breadfruit with a peeler, but I think you can eat the skin if you wash it well.
3. Chop up leeks or onions or other vegetables and boil them in chicken stock and water.
4. Go husk a coconut. I used the waini that I had from the Great Coconut Harvest of '11 (see previous post).
5. Scrape it, bash it open, and grate it.
6. Add water to the coconut flakes, swirl it around, squeeze the flakes and put them in a separate bowl for later. Strain the milk out.
7. Add a few tablespoons of cornstarch to the coconut milk and as much curry as you want.
8. Put the boiled, slice breadfruit and the chicken in the boiling chicken stock-and-leek water, then add the milk mixture. If you really wanted to make this a Marshallese meal, use fish instead of chicken.
9. Add salt, pepper, garlic powder, and whatever else you want to taste.
10. Pass out with sheer joy as you eat this incredibly delicious yet cheap meal.

Nini taking some home with her in a coconut shell.

I like living here.