I’ve eaten a lot of mumu in my time but I’ve have never been involved in preparing one, so when I heard Aunty Sauni’s stories about how she used to run a busy catering business called Townsville Tropical Parties back in the day (in the 90s) specialising in mumus, I thought, what a great opportunity to learn from an expert. We had been talking about it all year and finally, before Jacinta and I went to Manus we locked in 13th December as our mumu day at Aunty Sauni and Uncle Jeff’s house at Balgal Beach.
The New Zealand Maoris call it the Hangi and the Torres Strait Islanders call it the Kup Murri, in PNG we call it mumu. It is basically a way of preparing a feast in a ground oven using hot stones. Traditionally, the food is packed neatly in banana leaves, but in the absence of this al-foil wraps can be used. It does tastes better with banana leaves, which is what we opted for.
The day started early with a relaxing drive out to Balgal Beach for some breakfast. After breakfast it was a team effort as we got things rolling. There was a task suitable for everyone, from peeling and preparing the veggies and meat, to fetching and cutting firewood to digging and preparing the mumu pit with the stones.
We got kaukau (sweet potatoes), taros and pumpkin and for the meat we got lamb, chicken and a couple of whole fish (sweet lips). There was plenty of kumu (green leafy vegetables) and other seasonal veggies growing around Sauni and Jeff’s house. These two have some of the greenest thumbs I have ever seen. Within 12 months of living at this place they absolutely transformed a once dry patchy back yard into this thick, full of life tropical vegetable garden.
The mumu pit itself followed several steps. Firstly an appropriately sized mumu pit was dug. Then its base was layered by small stones. Then we arranged some firewood on top of this in a way where more stones can sit on it and heat up when the structure is lit. Basically we are forming a pyre for the stones.
Once all the stones have been placed on the firewood it is ready to be lit. It’s important to coordinate the timing of lighting the fire and the food preparation – which included stuffing and seasoning the meat and vegetables as desired, wrapping up the ones that need to be individually wrapped (the fish) and preparing the coconut milk for pouring onto the food before the final wrap. If we light the fire too early before the food is prepared we risk losing heat from the stone before they are in place and covered.
With Aunty Sauni, Uncle Jeff and Eddie’s expert guidance we had our timing down pat.
It took about 30 to 45 minutes for the firewood to burn through and the structure to collapse into it self, sufficiently heating the larger stones which were heaped on top. These stones were then removed from the pit along with all the charcoal leaving only the initial bedrock. Then we carefully placed a second layer of the larger stones (now very hot) into the pit. On the layer of hot stones went the banana leaves to which formed a nice clean bed for the food.
Next – in goes the food – veggies first, then the meat, more stones which were carefully wrapped in banana leaves and strategically placed in amongst the food to ensure all the pieces get their fair share of the heat.
After all the food is in place and covered with the final layer of banana leaves, more hot stones are placed on top and the mumu sits to cook for about 2 hours.
Two hours later it was time for the great unveiling. The leaves were carefully peeled off one by one to reveal the deliciously cooked food which went straight to the table for serving. IT WAS DELICIOUS!
What a wonderful day of learning, laughing, story telling and family time. Hillary, Eloise and Eloise’s parents Mike and Helen, and Ben were there to enjoy the lunch and afternoon with us. It was also great to connect with brother Eddie – who gave us a few tips about how to set up our ute for our planned road trip next year.
Leah, Elijah and Emily went for a walk to the beach and returned with some kulaus (green coconuts ) for refreshments and some coconut leaves to do some fun weaving. With fruit salad and kulau for dessert
Final photo of the day – Planning the next get together