Food, books and the Pacific
I’ve been following Australian permaculture educator Jo Dean‘s posts about food, cooking, gardening, sea kayaking and her work in training communities and school children in do-it-yourself food production in the Republic of the Marshall Islands, way out in the Pacific.
Jo is a resident of Launceston, Tasmania, where she organises permaculture design courses, works with people in community gardening, and is an instructor with the 24Carrot school garden program. She is soft-spoken and energetic and has the interpersonal skills required for her work. She is well-respected by her peers and by the others she comes into contact with. Just last year my partner Fiona and I worked with Jo on the Northern Tasmania Permaculture Design Course.
It was Jo’s reports from the Marshalls about the local food that, when tidying the bookcase the other day, drew my attention to Jennifer Brennan’s book, Tradewinds and Coconuts-a Reminiscence and Recipes from the Pacific Islands. Her’s is a book about cooking with Pacific Island foods. It also contains ethnographic as well as descriptive information about the foods. The book was published in the year 2000 and I’m unsure whether it is still available. It would be a pity if it is not because it is a valuable compendium describing Pacific Island local foods and how they can be turned into nutritious meals.
One thing leads to another. Jo’s work reminded me of Jennifer’s book and both reminded me of my partner and my work in the Solomon Islands. That is why I am familiar with many of the ingredients in her book. In the Solomons we worked on food security and farming systems, initially with APACE—Appropriate Technology for Community and Environment—a small Australian NGO also involved in village micro-hydroelectric engineering projects. Later, we continued the work with another NGO, TerraCircle, formed by some of us from APACE. Our approach has been to combine what is useful from traditional Solomon Island farming systems with agricultural science to increase the production of foods in the villages to support the growing population of the Solomon Islands.
Our time in the Solomons introduced us to many of the foods grown there as well as the sea life harvested from the lagoons. Along with entomologist Grahame Jackson, who works with TerraCircle, some of the work involved assessing village crops for plant pest and disease infestation and what could be done about it.
I looked for mention of the Solomon Islands in Jennifer‘s book but found none. Her’s is not a cookbook for the gourmet class. It is a book for ordinary people who have an interest in food, what is available locally and how it can be prepared into tasty meals—people who I think of as ‘serious’ cooks because they link local food production and nutrition rather than cook food for affluent eaters and showy Instagram accounts.
Now, Jo, my partner and I are thinking about a book for the Marshall Islands. Like Jennifer’s Tradewinds and Coconuts, it would focus on locally procured foods and their cooking as well as related information about traditional and modern life in the Marshalls. Think of it as ethnography plus dinner.
