Papua New Guinea Day

The Papua New Guinean national dish, mumu, is simple and economical to make. Most recipes call for slow cooking over a pit of coals, or at the very least the use of a Dutch oven in an electric oven. We used a slow cooker and it seemed to do the job. Very simple, I threw in a layer of spinach, a layer of sweet potatoes, a layer of chicken, a layer of pineapple, another layer of chicken, and a layer of spinach, onion, and garlic, all drowned in coconut milk (that last step is very important). The meat cooks in the fruit juice, coconut, and garlic/onions, giving it a sweet but subtle tang.

As the meat was cooking we watched the first part of Guns, Germs, and Steel, where Jared Diamond talks about the Papua New Guineans and the unparalleled human and natural diversity of the island. His books go much more in-depth and are required reading for adults (example, some languages in Papua New Guinea are as different from each other as Chinese is from English). On the way to the store to get ingredients I taught Simeon facts about Papua New Guinea so that he could give the lecture at the map. He loved being the expert.