Wednesday 2 September Samoan feast

Sunset at Tisa's

A couple of miles along the coast from Pago Pago is a beachfront restaurant called Tisa's. On Wednesday's Tisa prepares a traditional Samoan feast of food cooked in an umu, stones are heated by burning logs under them, when the logs have burnt and the stones are hot the food is placed on top and everything sealed under banana leaves to cook for 4 hours. Suzanne from the boat Maa Malahi organised a group of us cruisers to go along.

At 5.30pm we gathered on the dinghy dock and jumped on one of the colourful local buses, this must have been an executive bus because he was showing a film. The irony is it's a rickety bus which barely padded seats along each side and a drop down TV screen to keep the customers happy. Ten minutes of a film with dogs speaking we arrived at the restaurant and had a drink while the sun went down.

Tisa serving dinner

Then came the ceremony of uncovering the umu. Banana leaves were pulled off and the food was revealed. All of this was then set out on a long trestle covered with more banana leaves. Our plates were a dish of woven banana leaves with a large flat leaf piece within to keep the food from falling through. What a way to save on washing up. And you eat with your fingers so no cutlery. We had our plates filled with baked bananas, breadfruit, shrimps in coconut, mango, papaya, another coconut sauce, octopus cooked in the ink, chicken, lamb, pork and succulent turkey. It was delicious. David went back for more meat and I was tempted with the pork and turkey.

Before dinner was served Mama Tisa had been coaching her 2 granddaughters, her young grandson (he's the one with long flowing locks) and the 3 children from Stray Kitty in traditional dancing. After dinner, accompanied by Tisa they were are evening entertainment. Is this child exploitation? Hardly. The kids were having as much fun as the adults.

Another most convivial evening; However, if we ate like this every night we'd be as big as the Samoans.  For me it's like walking in the land of the giants.  They are tall and obese.  I read almost 1 in 6 people suffer from the diabetes you get from being overweight.Too much junk food for a genetic make up that wasnt intended for MacDonalds and KFC.