Day 123 The Umu

Liahona leaves
First thing in the morning I helped Jim and Wendy leave on Liahona for Niue. We hope to see them again as we spent many pleasant days with them over the last few weeks.
Michael (the accountant from NZ) does business on the island with Puai whose company does financial planning and transactions for wealthy individuals who seek the tax haven status of the Cook Islands. In honor of Michael and his wife Julie and their friends Frank and Debbie and Mark and Molly, Puai and his wife Ta'i hosted an umu at his home.
In a traditional umu, a fire is burned in a pit and then covered with stones and leaves. On top is placed a pig and various vegetables. This is then covered with more leaves and dirt. Does this sound like a New England clambake? In Puai's umu he used pork and chicken (a whole pig would have been a bit much) wrapped in aluminum foil and held in a metal frame. The covering was a cloth. Also cooked was breadfruit, arrowroot and banana.
Puai's house sits on what appears to be about two acres about a quarter of a mile toward the mountains off the road that encircles the island. He chose this location to be safe from the hurricanes that occasionally hit the island. Directly behind his house is a plantation that grows banana and arrowroot plants.
Three carloads of people and several more on scooters showed up at noon. The food was removed from the pit and taken into the main room of the house. This room has wide doors that open onto a deck that looks out at the mountain. Puai gave a welcome speech and said a blessing and then everyone took plates of wonderful food outside on the deck or on the spacious lawn surrounding the house. The pork and chicken were swimming in a brown juice that made the meat moist and delicious. An unusual topping for the vegetables was coconut cream that added richness. I went back for seconds as did many others.
For dessert, Julie and Debbie had baked apple crumble and made a large trifle (cake and fruit topped with whipped cream).
I asked Puai about his nationality as he has a German name. He traces his ancestry back to an Irishman named O'Conner who was shipwrecked in the Tuomotus and then rescued by Captain Bligh. That was 7 generations ago. After that, there was Cook Island stock and an Englishman with a German name who spied on the Germans in Samoa during the war. Fascinating.
We had a wonderful day and by the time we got back to the boat it was dark and we were still so full we did not even think about dinner.