Tribewanted: Vorovoro

No Gas Sunday is always a challenge, and after last weeks excellent Irish stew (courtesy of Peter) the standard had been set. This weeks plan was sandwiches for lunch and spaghetti bolognaise for dinner – but it would be no fun at all if everything went to plan! No bread had been bought making sandwiches impossible, but it just so happened that Phase Two of our chicken catching had been put into action on Saturday. The essential hypothesis was ‘drop weighted net from great height onto chicken’. Surprisingly, it worked! We’re getting to be old hands at baiting chickens – though unfortunately the roosters have still managed to outwit s and continue to ‘cock-a-doodle-ooo’ at ungodly hours.

The sacrificing of the bird was left to Paul as he has previous experience and knew what he was doing. We decided on a chicken soup and to complement it with breadfruit, something which I’d never heard of before coming to Vorovoro. It entered my consciousness with a (literal) bang, when one fell onto the tin roof of the Vale during the cyclone. Having suffered a near heart attack I enquired as to what it was and we’re now pulling them off the trees and having it regularly boiled or fried into chips. We decided that seeing as we were surviving off the land for part of our lunch we wouldn’t rack open the baked beans but would attempt to prepare the breadfruit from scratch. I asked Sosi how we’d know when it’d been boiled for long enough and he pulled off a leaf from a coconut tree, and stripped it down leaving us with a skewer. When it goes straight through without any resistance then they’re ready to be fried. A squeeze of lemon over the chips, a dash of salt in the soup and out of nowhere Peter rustled up some soda bread – what better lunch could we possible wish for, and all cooked over a fire!

Keeping the fire going all afternoon meant the bolognaise could be simmered down, while the rest of us took a hard earned break and played a round of twister. Sitting down to the food we even had garlic bread, cheese (a rarity!) and a splash of red wine each, courtesy of Peter.

Cooking on the wood fire, fending for ourselves and surviving a whole day without one slice of cake…what more could you want? Though it’s probably best it’s only one day a week!