Kiribati

A dense, moist feast pudding from Kiribati made by finely grating giant swamp taro (Cyrtosperma merkusii) and steaming it bound with coconut cream and sweetened with sugar or coconut toddy.

Whole giant swamp taro (Cyrtosperma merkusii) slow-cooked in a traditional earth oven until its dense, starchy flesh is fully tender and the exterior is deeply caramelised.

Whole or large-chunked taro corms (Colocasia esculenta) simmered in plain water until completely tender throughout, served as the primary starch staple of Pacific island meals.

Mature starchy breadfruit — boiled or cooked in a traditional earth oven — served bathed in or gently poached with fresh-pressed coconut cream, a foundational Pacific staple in which the complementary natural sweetness of both indigenous ingredients is the dish's entire character.

A Kiribati soup of giant clams or lagoon bivalves gently simmered in a light coconut broth, eaten as a main with the shellfish and its liquor.

A Kiribati feast dessert of fresh coconut cream thickened with starch and set into a soft, rich pudding.

A foundational I-Kiribati dish of fresh reef fish gently simmered in freshly pressed coconut cream with onion, seasoned minimally so the natural sweetness of the coconut and the delicacy of the fish remain foreground.

Rice cooked entirely by absorption in coconut milk rather than water, yielding fragrant, richly flavored grains with a subtly sweet, savory, and creamy character.

Fresh sap tapped directly from the unopened inflorescence of a living coconut palm, drunk immediately as a sweet, slightly effervescent juice or allowed to ferment naturally into a mildly alcoholic toddy.

A Kiribati staple of flying fish — fresh or dried — cooked over an open coconut-husk fire by grilling or smoking.

A whole reef fish — cleaned, scored to the bone, and cooked skin-on over an open flame or in a dry pan — served as the essential daily protein of I-Kiribati subsistence cooking with minimal seasoning so the fresh oceanic flavor dominates.

A Pacific Islander dish of tenderised octopus slow-simmered in fresh coconut cream until the sauce thickens and coats the meat.

A dense sweet paste made from the cooked, pounded pulp of ripe pandanus drupes, dried into a long-keeping staple food of the central Pacific atolls.

A Pacific Islander feast centerpiece of a whole pig slow-cooked in an earthen pit oven lined with fire-heated stones, where it steam-roasts for hours until the meat is tender and smoky.

A raw fish salad of fresh cubed fish marinated in lime juice and coconut cream, seasoned with salt and served chilled.

Whole or portioned pig cooked slowly in a traditional Kiribati earth oven of heated stones for ceremonial feasts.

A lightly fermented toddy tapped from the sap of the coconut palm flower, the traditional mildly alcoholic drink of Kiribati.