Food

Food

Whenever my sister in America, Jen, thinks of Samoan food, she thinks of the abundance of food there is.  One morning, as we were getting ready for our daily activities, content on having delicious ripe fruit for breakfast, we began to smell eggs being cooked.  We then saw my brother who had to have been frying several dozen eggs.  “Why is he cooking so many?” she asked.

“He wanted to make sure there was enough of the food you may like.”  People always want to impress their guest so they make a lot of food whenever someone comes over.   This often means waking up at the crack of dawn to cook.  And as always the chef is the last to eat.

I have gotten used to the idea of being overwhelmed with the amount of food, because I have learned if it is not eaten right away by someone; it will sit on the table, under the food cover until some eats it.  Those gigantic pots that we use here to cook really do come in handy because you never know who will be stopping by to eat with you. 

The only time I had the same experience as my sister was coming home from school one day.  My dad was sitting in the front of the house with a toaster, a stack of bread (probably from 2-3 loaves), butter and jam.  It was just him in the house, and he was toasting the 30ish pieces of bread.  When he finished, he allowed himself to start eating.  I joined him, but it seemed like such an abundance of food, especially since I grew up with hot toast, and before Samoa was not accustomed to cold toast. 

Speaking of food, I just found a DVD, where someone had a copy of Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern, a show from the Travel Chanel.  On this episode he traveled to Upolu, and it was funny to see what he thought of some of the food I have come accustomed to.  His pronunciations of the words crack me up, as they are pronounced worst than the cast of Survivor.  The disc I found is not good, and I was only able to watch the beginning of the episode.  I am looking forward to going on the internet one day to download and watch the entire program. 

Until then, I will keep eating fa’aSamoan-which means eating a lot!