Lovo Barbecue

This afternoon, we were laying around in the living room when Eli jumped up and decided that it would be a good time to finally make a lovo. A lovo is a traditional Fijian method of cooking where they light a fire in the pit, pile a bunch of rocks on top, and wait for the fire to go out so that the rocks are super hot and fall into the pit. Food is wrapped up and then placed in the pit and covered up with banana leaves and palm fronds for about an hour until it is cooked through. Eli asked our housekeeper, Marama (she insists we call her mom) about a lovo pit and she said that there was one right outside of our house, it was just covered up. He bought a bunch of food that morning, and went outside to get Mom, who was puttering around the house. He just asked her to help him find some firewood, but Mom scampered around the backyard for a little while shrieking in Fijian and in five minutes there was a small contingent of Fijian housekeepers that had assembled outside my house preparing food.

Our other housekeeper Polly, cutting up dead coconut husks to toss on the fire to smother it and let us start cooking food.

We only had a little bit of tinfoil, so the Fijian women tied together the packets with palm frond leaves.

Dalo leaves. We stacked these up and cooked them - they taste a bit like spinach. I followed Mom to help her gather a bunch up, since a lot of the plants grow in the drainage ditch that runs behind our house and the flats. She jumped around cackling and yelling for me to pick the lailai, yalewa! (The little ones, girl!) I'm guessing that the bigger leaves are too tough and not delicious.

Polly chopping up garlic, onions, ginger, and chili peppers. The woman to her left is squeezing coconut meat to get coconut cream. Fijian food is cooked vakalolo - in coconut cream. It's seasoned with all of the things mentioned above, and then poured over the vegetables or meat and wrapped up in either tinfoil or banana leaves.

Eli had picked up a fat parrotfish from the fish market that morning. The women cut slits in the sides of the fish, and stuffed the seasoning mixture into the flesh for cooking.

The parrotfish, ready for cooking! One of the women wrapped it up in a banana leaf and wrapped the whole packet shut with a palm frond. They're very good with making do with what's available here.

Standing around the lovo, watching the process. The Fijian women didn't seem like they wanted that much help, but I still forced myself in there to do some stuff.

We tossed all of the banana leaf/tinfoil/palm frond packets into the pit (along with some cassava, a super starchy root vegetable), covered the whole thing up with banana leaves, and let it cook. After an hour, everything was perfectly cooked with a little smoky flavor. Lovo food is a little plain (they don't put any seasonings like salt or pepper), but I still really like it. Maybe I'll try making my own back home with actual spices and stuff.