Suck it Up and Suck it Down

One of the favorite foods on this particular island—both PNG and Indonesia sides—is sago, or as it’s called in Tok Pisin, saksak. The sago palm provides all sorts of resources in places where it grows: its branches are used for fishing rods and brooms, its “meat” is used for cooking in a multitude of ways, and even the sago grub provides a tasty source of sustenance! No, I didn’t try one, but only because I wasn’t given the opportunity. I did taste a sago mushroom, though…tasted it, and then gave it to the fish in the river to eat!

Every day, Eric and I had to go to the local water pump at least once to fill up our containers with water for drinking and cooking. One afternoon as I walked back with my bilum (PNG-style bag) full of heavy water containers on my head, we saw a woman standing by our house with a bag FILLED with garden produce. She was going to teach me to cook, she said. Teaching methods are different in PNG, and usually in the village we stayed in, being taught to do something meant watching someone else do it. So, I watched her cook food, and then according to PNG custom, I delivered plates of it to all the nearby family members who thanked me for making it for them!

The next morning, she—who turned out to be our waspapa’s aunt—was at our house at 6 in the morning to teach me how to cook sago! There are many ways it can be done, and we already knew from experience that most of them are unpalatable to our western taste buds! There is a process for harvesting sago that we were shown in the bush, but Auntie T had bought some already processed at the market. It was a powdery substance that we mixed with water until it turned to paste. Appetizing! Then she poured in boiling water while I stirred it, and right before my eyes, it turned into a gelatinous glob.

To serve the gelatinous glob-style of sago (other methods include frying and smoking), the traditional technique is to take two sticks and spin some of it together to form a ball. I could not get the hang of that, though, so I was given a spoon with which to serve it. We had at least eight plates to fill, but there was so much sago that Auntie T kept telling me to put more on each plate. When each plate was overflowing with goo, we topped it with ibika and snake beans (local vegetables), canned tuna, and the gravy that came from boiling the vegetables with ginger. I don’t have a picture of it, so you’ll have to google sago. I prayed and prayed that I would be able to get it down without throwing up!

Finally it was time to eat. Our waspapa told us not to chew it; you just let it slide down your throat. Thankfully, it’s not the most flavorful thing in the world, so it wasn’t too terribly hard to just “suck it up and suck it down.”