Gotta Get That Highlands Kaikai

The food that grows down in Madang is what we call bush food.

Taro, kaukau, and other tubers that are all sweet tasting potatoes.

Not to be confused with sweet potatoes which they also grow.

Greens like pumpkin greens and aibica are … better than collards...

But tulip (pronounced two leap), not to be confused with tulip, which is a lovely flower, is GROSS.

Waxy leaves, growing two to a stem (hence the name. two leaf, tulip. Get it? Yeah!). Like most lowland's greens, they have to be boiled to death before consumption, but tulip never loses its waxy leafiness.

Imagine eating a big bowl of magnolia leaves.

Yuk.

Throw it together boil it in water. DON'T ADD SEASONING!

PNG kai.

We didn't come to PNG for the cuisine.

But the Highlands!

Oh the highlands!

The altitude gives them weather akin to ours, meaning they grow the food of the home land.

Broccoli

Avocados

Onions

Idaho Potatoes

Garlic

Tomatoes

Lettuce

These things often make it down to Madang from those who choose to sell their wares (instead of eat them themselves), but a little beaten and bruised from the journey.

But one thing that never makes it down?

BERRIES!

STRAWBERRIES

BLACKBERRIES

OTHER BERRIES?

I DON'T KNOW BUT I'M SO EXCITED!

photo credit: Tyler  Hewitt

Our main agenda is canning. We've found reason to hesitate on buying a pressure canner so we're focusing on things that can use the hot water bath. Salsa, jam, and pickling. We were accompanied by some friends with great canning experience to learn us in the ways of bush storage.

Without a refrigerator and the power to run it, all of our food options for the months we stay in the bush need a very long shelf life. From dehydrating to canning, we're trying to find ways to keep ourselves well-fed and not resentful (meals are powerful things and to have a good one after a long hard day is beautiful whereas to have a bad one is a gasket waiting to blow.)

Dang, man's looking good!

Ukarumpa was cool, the strawberries were sweet, and our traveling companions were pleasurable. It was a good trip, but with all the canning and dehydrating and freezing (which is preservation for in town not the bush), despite the insistence by our co-workers, it was by no means a vacation!

But it was delicious!