Subsistence farmers and provisioning in the Pacific Island Groups of Micronesia and Melanesia*
“Isn’t trying the local foods what it’s all about?”
Jamie (aka Groot) off the USNS Mercy Hospital Ship in Micronesia, on leave for 36 hours and keen to try banana soup in Weno, Chuuk, Micronesia.
My lifestyle challenges me regularly. In the past six months, I have spoken to a mom who was concerned her child would die due to malnutrition. I have seen a man kick a live pig in a sack. I have watched a man dive off a 100′ tower, not knowing if he was motivated by tribal tradition or my family’s tourist dollars.
At this point in our circumnavigation, I could have eaten possum, iguana, crocodile or flying fox. But, most nights, I just want to feed my family and be in bed by 9 P.M.
On the whole, buying food in the Pacific Islands is very different than in North America. There is far less variety, food labels can be unusual or absent, and there is a risk of buying counterfeit products. Pacific islanders meet their needs through subsistence farming, supplemented by shopping at a market and plethora of Chinese grocery stores.
I can talk a bit about the subsistence farming lifestyle, having spent a few days with a woman named Margaret on Pentecost Island, Vanuatu
Subsistence farming on Pentecost Island, Vanuatu
The isolation of north Pentecost Island is what makes Margaret’s subsistence gardening so interesting. To reach Margaret’s house, you must travel by boat or airplane. Then, you hike up steep roads and tracks to where the pavement ends, passing the occasional thatched hut. Margaret lives at about 300 feet above sea level, on a route that takes about 30 minutes to walk.
Near the shoreline, there is a small shop. Here, people can buy tinned fish, Spam, and corned beef. Some people have powerboats that they use to fish. We saw two fat boars tethered to trees. Pigs are slaughtered for ceremonial feasts and offered in payment for a bride.
From Margaret’s village, we could see the farming efforts of a village at a higher elevation, where the land looked tufted and slightly terraced. They had planted yams there. Yams are very important to their culture. They have fables about yams and a yam festival. Given that Vanuatu receives between 11 to 13 hours of daylight each day, the jungle vegetation provides food in lush abundance. To hike in the rainforest, is like walking amongst giant office plants.
Every plant belongs to someone, and many plants have medicinal and spiritual properties. My children eagerly devoured everything they were offered. They especially liked the enormous pamplemouse (grapefruits). They ate so many limes that at least one of our children developed a short-term sun sensitivity.
“Do you have a knife with you?”
– Margaret, before chopping off a piece of sugar cane for my family.
On Pentecost Island, it is common to carry a machete. Even toddlers carry large knives.
I found the prevalence of the machete to be unsettling. The last documented case of cannibalism in Vanuatu was in 1969. My fears about machetes, and the masterful authority they exude, were not completely irrational.
For example, as part of the AidOcean 2023 medical mission, Betty visited 50 villages in New Hanover Island, PNG. In one village, she was told that she could not see the principal and sole educator because he had been beheaded by some highlanders a couple of weeks earlier. In the same village, the foreign members of the medical group were advised to leave the produce market because, to the local team members, the villagers’ behavior did not seem right. The villagers were standing around the market with knives.
In Weno, Chuuk, Micronesia, Betty and I went on half-day guided tour and felt threatened by men with machetes in two instances. At one tourist site, a man discretely threatened to cut off the arm of our local guide if we didn’t give him money.
That said, I like to think that most people are good people. And, Margaret was great company. Her lifestyle involves chopping fruits and vegetables as she needs them and cooking food on a floor, over an open fire. She sleeps on a mat on the ground. Margaret treated us to a cooked meal of Spam and a taro root and coconut meal.
While Margaret’s area did have a “Mother’s Market,” it seemed to be more a place to socialize. As we are not subsistence farmers ourselves, we buy food from markets and grocery stores. That’s where this blog post will head next.
Fish for sale
One morning in Kavieng, Papua New Guinea, Karen and I jumped on a chartered bus with women from an outlying village. We had been waiting for a taxi. They had stopped at the grocery store in Kavieng to fill a large cooler with ice. They said we could ride with them.
“Stop at the fish market, please,” said a woman to the driver. He stopped and all the ladies clambered out of the bus with their woven baskets.
The fish at the market tend to range in size from small reef fish to large enough to slice for steaks. We bought a crab on one occasion, though I found it required an enormous amount of work for very little meat. We released the crab before it went into the pot, and then had to get it under control using metal tongs.
Dried fish seemed to be what people liked to eat in the morning. There were stacks of dried fish wrapped in cellophane on tables. Some of it was still there in the afternoon.
Fresh fish is tended by vendors who flit at the merchandise with sticks and branches to prevent flies from landing. And, if I’m being completely transparent, the fish area of the market is usually where stray dogs congregate. The dogs are often emaciated or have mange, open sores, broken limbs, and cower as people walk past, tucking their tails under them as they go.
Seasonal produce
Seasonal produce is available in markets and, in more remote spots, from people in dug-out canoes. The prices are usually clearly displayed and very reasonable.
For reasons I don’t understand, different types of produce ripen at certain times of the year. Except in the highlands of PNG, the temperature hovers at around 30 degrees Celsius all year. All that changes is the humidity. There are two seasons: dry and rainy. It seems the plants themselves have their own inner seasons. When cucumbers are ripe, every market vendor is selling cucumbers.
The market might also have yams, and perhaps peanuts, and maybe peppers. But, there is not always a huge variety of produce to choose from. A local in the Solomon Islands told me to buy pineapples from different vendors. He reasoned that things might taste different, depending on who you buy them from, and where they are grown.
Some of the vendors sleep under the tables. I’ve literally been digging for change only to realize that the vendor behind the table is a mom on the floor nursing a baby while also managing a toddler. People sometimes sit and sell things below the table of another vendor, which I learned when I accidentally stepped on a shopping bag that was being sold, literally under my feet. I bought the bag out of pure embarrassment. One vendor in Kavieng used a knife to remove a splinter from her foot while I was buying limes from her stall.
The ground is often littered with red betel nut juice that people spit. It is addictive stuff and stems hunger. It causes mouth cancer and stains people’s teeth red to black. You can hardly avoid stepping in wet patches of betel nut in Honiara (Solomon Islands) and Kavieng. I was tempted to try it, just to see what it tastes like, but to do so, you have to eat lime, which is crunched up coral. I couldn’t see the appeal.
On February 2, 2024, the Australian Consulate announced that it will rebuild parts of the Central Market in Honiara to provide vendors with shade and seating. Here is a link to a video that features the High Commissioner to Solomon Islands, Mr. Rod Hilton, talking to market vendors and speaking about the upcoming project.
Grocery stores
Grocery stores tend to be much smaller than what we might see in North America. Some shops look like conventional grocery shops but they usually contain a lot of plastic bric-a-brac. Main streets are lined with Chinese variety shops with an emphasis on canned goods and noodle soups. The size of most shops would be about the size of a North American convenience store of the sort that offers coffee, and is attached to a gas station.
As you might expect, the prices in the grocery stores for local produce and eggs tend to be slightly higher than at the market. Imported goods are sold at discounted prices if cans are dented or if they are past their best-before date. Near the exits, security guards peer from high stools. Sometimes CCTV cameras are displayed within the store.
Jam has the consistency of Jello, with no evidence that it ever came from the fruit advertised. Bread tends to be sweeter. Unprocessed cheese is a rare find, though often expensive. Celery is imported. I noticed that during our stay in Weno, Chuuk, Micronesia, the celery stalks became smaller and smaller as the store staff discarded the outer layers. Just before we left, I removed layers of celery mush myself to salvage what little remained of the edible celery.
In Weno, boxes of chicken were a very popular item. Enough people were buying them that they must be safe to eat. I just couldn’t get past the fact that once-frozen chicken was being sold in printer-paper-sized boxes on pallets in the grocery store, with no refrigeration. Jamie, the sailor off USNS Mercy, said, “he wouldn’t touch them.”
We left Micronesia for an 8-day trip to the Philippines with an assortment of canned goods, about 20 onions, two bags of white potatoes, and 30 bruised-looking apples. We also have staples like rice, flour, sugar, coffee, tea, and powdered milk. The powdered milk I bought may be counterfeit. We bought a couple of tins of cream as a treat. This limited selection would be unthinkable in the early days of our longer ocean crossings.
Fortunately, Paul is keeping us stocked with protein. In the past couple of weeks, Paul has caught a couple of Mahi-mahi, a Wahoo and a Black Marlin. The Marlin was just over two meters long and weighed about 150 lbs. We had to use our topping lift winch to carry the fish onboard. He has had to stop fishing because our freezer is full with well over 100 lbs of fillets.
We are on our way to Allen, Philippines, where we expect to check in on Tuesday, February 7th, 2024. We are looking forward to visiting the town. We have been using Google Satellite to snoop around the town. Our first stop in Allen will be a coast guard station, which happens to be next door to a place selling burgers.
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In the past 8 months we have visited all of the countries in Melanesia: Fiji, Vanuatu, Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea. We spent 2 months in the Federated States of Micronesia, specifically in Chuuk and Yap.
Becoming a Sailor 