The Road Less Traveled : The Lu Cook Off

For those of you who are a bit tired of my lu centric posts, I apologize, but with school winding down and Camp GLOW & GROW ramping up, lu has played an outsized role in my last few weeks. Those of you who did enjoy my previous post on cooking lu at school hopefully will continue to do so. This post, however, is not about a cultural experience, but rather a fun little contest among the Peace Cops Volunteers.

For the last several years the volunteers up in Vava’u have hosted a lu cook off with the winner walking away with a small trophy. Though we failed to hold the competition last year, we decided we could not make that mistake again and so last Saturday the newest and greatest Peace Corps cooking rivalry in Vava’u was hosted at Don and Norie’s, the American Baha’i couple who generously let us use their house.

There were five competitors including myself. The rules were simple. Everyone had to use the traditional lu ingredients – lu leaves, coconut milk, and onions – but beyond that the goal was to make the best tasting lu imaginable. Any ingredient that you could come up with and that you thought would add to a winning dish was admissible.

With the goal of winning on all of our minds, we spent the morning shopping for ingredients before arriving at the house at 2 pm to begin cooking. Everyone tried to maintain the surprise, as each of us made our food in separate corners of the house before walking over to Neru’s house, a Samoan friend of ours, to wrap the food in the lu leaves, to cover the entire dish in banana leaves to help cook the food and protect it, and to throw the meal in the underground oven.

An hour later the lu was finished, a dining arrangement was set up on the floor of the house, and the lu was spread out for the judges to taste. Each dish was varied. I, with my incredible culinary talent, kept things simple and made lu sipi (lu with lamb), as lamb works incredibly with lu and is by far my favorite meat for this dish. To top it off I added some tomatoes, green peppers, and cucumber to toss in a little more flavor. Another volunteer made a pseudo stir-fry in their lu, combining rice, vegetables, chicken, and chili sauce culminating in an intriguing blend of lu and curry. The third volunteer decided to eliminate meat, a risky and very un-Tongan venture I assure you, and added soy sauce and eggplant to the coconut milk and leaves to make a surprisingly spicy and tasty dish.

Our volunteer leader molded minced beef into seasoned meatballs and threw them into his lu, creating a hamburger with leaves as buns rather than bread. And finally our last competitors made an interesting coconut and chicken stew to top everything off. The judges tasted each of the food and quietly deliberated. As the judges were pondering their heavy burden, the rest of us passed around the abundance of food and ate potluck style.

Once everyone was served. Don and Norie announced their judgment. The winner and champion of the Lu Cook Off 2013 was the eggplant and soy sauce lu, but there was a surprise. In an upset for the ages, and much to the chagrin of the other competitors, my lu came in second place with Don even revealing to me later that if he was judging by himself I may have won. Assuredly, no one was more surprised than I was – I pass along all credit to the lamb rather than myself – but I have to admit I will certainly enjoy my bragging rights for a few weeks at least.

All of the lu tasted pretty good, and it was really fun to take something that is so undeniably Tongan and add a little of our own personal and American flair to it. As an added bonus, several of the new Peace Corps volunteers were able to attend the cook off, giving us a chance to get to know them better. Several days before the cook off, 6 new female volunteers arrived in Vava’u for the first time to begin their service after two months of training on the main island. It has been fascinating meeting the new volunteers, as it seems like one giant flashback. Every question they ask, all of their obvious nervousness, reminds me of what I was like just one year ago, and has allowed me to realize how far I have come during my time in Tonga.

Thank you all for reading. I foolishly forgot to take pictures during the cook off – I am hoping to retrieve a few photos from another volunteer – but I have uploaded some more photos from the day we made lu at school. Hope you all enjoy.