Cooking in the jungle

I followed Heidi through the bamboo forest and into the jungle. We were carrying food and supplies to make dinner at the Mango Kitchen.

When I was in Japan, Heidi asked me if I would make a Japanese dinner for some of her friends. I agreed, excited to bring my favourite Japanese ingredients and combine these with local produce, to make a special dinner on-site.

What I didn’t know then, is that this dinner would be in a kitchen in the jungle and it would be for her special friends who are workers of a great organization called the Hawaii Institute of Pacific Agriculture, called HIP (hipagriculture.org). HIP has 25 acres of farmland just outside of Kapa’auh that used to be owned by King Kamehameha. The institute has internships to learn about hands-on farming and sustainable living. This is no ordinary organization or farm.


They farm a wide range of tropical produce from mango, papaya and star fruit to avocado, plantain and ginger, in addition to macadamias. Interns learn about a wide range of topics, from tropical permaculture and mycology (study of mushrooms, including growing them) to plant identification and medicine.  

While it may seem easy for the people of Hawaii to feed themselves from their lush and fertile land, 85% of their food is imported and they are the world's most isolated island. Much of the land has been controlled by corporate sugar cane plantations until recently and new incentives are encouraging biotech corporations to use the land to produce crops, some of which are GMO. Therefore, organizations like HIP are playing a vital role in helping people learn how to grow a diversity of products to feed themselves.

By the way, HIP boarders a ocean park with the most spectacular scenery I have ever seen.

The Mango Kitchen is basic and rustic, a friendly space, decorated in bright colours and surrounded with views of the jungle from the windows. Everything in the kitchen speaks to cooking and eating together, from the large kitchen counters to the communal table and sitting areas. And when I walked in everyone was happy to see me and offered to help me.

For dinner, I brought some ingredients I had gathered through my travels in Japan:  miso; kombu; shitake; wakame and green tea. I combined this with a incredible range of fresh ingredients available on the farm and in town: turmeric, ginger, coconut, pumpkin, sweet potato, mango, cilantro, greens, flowers, bananas, coconut sugar, lemons and tomatoes.  

What did I make for dinner?  A Japanese seaweed salad, miso soup and a tempeh curry with red rice and papaya hot sauce. Some of the people who joined us for dinner were vegan and were thrilled that they could eat everything I made. It may not be as pretty as my usual offerings as I served everything family style without much garnish and fanfare, however the participants told me it was delicious, and that made me happy. The only thing that was missing was dessert.

One of the male workers said that he would make cupcakes from the ulus that were over ripe and they needed to use them up. “What’s an ulu?”, I asked. Someone handed me a strange looking fruit the size of a cantaloupe with a bubbly cover.  Heidi had told me how good ulu is baked and wanted me to try it, and here I was in the jungle and someone was making it for us.  We were both excited! He made individual cupcakes with a glaze for it. Absolutely delicious! They have a joke at HIP, who knew ulu, because who knew a fruit that is kind of ugly could be that good. I guess you can’t judge a book or fruit by its cover!

It was a lovely evening, sharing food, conversation and tarot cards, with no distractions such as TVs, computers, cell phones or city traffic, which was surprising and welcoming with a largely younger crowd. I love the fact that HIP builds community, showing participants first hand what a real community of people that care about the future of the planet and each other feels like and can accomplish. This alone is admirable.  

 

With all our advancements in technology and communications, we seem more rushed, distracted and isolated than ever, to each other, what really matters to us, and most importantly ourselves. This has been a concern of mine, for myself and our communities.

 

Through this experience and my travels of late, I have realized that sometimes you need to go backwards before you can move forward, going faster is not necessarily better, and there are a multitude of speeds between low to high speed. Who knew?

Stopping for tea in the jungle...