Shopping, cooking, eating, and storage of food in Fiji is always a challenge and never the same. So let's start with the shopping: I imagine Fiji grocery stores, today, resemble what US stores possibly looked like in the 1950s: canned goods galore, essential staples, some dairy products, etc. I feel like a kid in a candy shop when I discover imported items like frozen salmon or dried blueberries! Getting everything we need is a half day excursion, requiring a stop at 6 different stores (produce market, butcher, bread store, specialty store, and two grocery stores). Of course that’s after a two hour drive to get to either town.
Once we complete the shopping process, it’s onto the next challenge: no refrigeration. You get really good at knowing what needs to get cooked and eaten first, and portioning so there are no leftovers. For instance, when Erik and I first got here, 3 kg of meat would need to be eaten that day or at least cooked the first day and eaten the next. BUT thank God we have recently upgraded to a COOLER (or 3) and can finally keep things a few days longer!!! Unfortunately, the fresh produce still suffers and the need to drive 45 mins or 2 hours for more ice still exists. The upside is that we’ve had our first cold beers at the property since the coolers’ arrival and can actually purchase and keep specialty items such as sour cream, frozen berries, and shrimp! Keeping bread is a remaining issue with the humidity, along with storing it in the easy-bake oven…we have forgotten it was in there multiple times before starting the oven….
So now that our food is packed away, it’s time to actually cook! To put it in perspective, our group has upgraded from cooking over an open fire, then to a single gas burner, to now having a 3 burner stove top and our grill, both powered by butane gas bottles. For baking, we have a Coleman camping oven that requires a stove top burner. This oven is smaller than a microwave but does NOT hold us back from making pizzas, lasagnas, or Thanksgiving dinner! It just takes a tad longer and is a bit more unpredictable on the temperature side. In fact, we go all out when we cook since it’s all from scratch anyways. Why not make anything and everything!? We are definitely ambitious eaters and chefs around here. You want soft pretzels? No problem! How about a cappuccino? You got it! Fish tacos are your favorite? We’ll make the tortillas, catch, fillet, and grill the fish, and whip up fresh slaw or salsa! Like I said, we can and do make anything, but it takes time, creativity, and possibly some substitutions. Did I mention that we do much of this by the light of a headlamp?
Some of our favorite meals:
**Please keep in mind that when I say "local," that usually means our neighbors!
Our next challenge arises when we start to run out of ingredients. It gets tricky when you can’t just run to the store. So what do you do when you have 2 eggs and 8 people? You make pancakes or crepes! I think I had only made crepes maybe twice ever before moving to Fiji and now it is a weekly occurrence. We made Thanksgiving dinner without any eggs, no refrigerator, stuffing from scratch (I mean we had to bake the bread first!) and had to milk the coconuts for milk.
Another challenge many wouldn’t think about, especially coming from or being in the US, is food choice and availability. Remember how I said Fiji is the US of the 1950s? Well, health and nutrition do not seem to be on their radar just yet. Seeing Fijians eating french fries and drinking Coca-cola at breakfast isn’t unusual. Tang, Oreos, Ritz, etc. are popular and we fall victim to snacking on them as well! In our defense (and perhaps in the Fijians’ defense too), we are extremely active and burn an excess of calories working here and sometimes a cold Coke after building a 3,000 sq ft deck sounds and tastes like heaven on earth! But the majority of our diet consists of lots of coconut (oil, shreds, water, milk), fruit from our trees, seasonal produce from the market or our neighbors, fresh fish we catch (red snapper, parrot fish, Spanish mackerel, grouper, Giant Trevally, mackerel tuna), local rice, and whatever else we’ve grown (beets, tomatoes, ginger, peppers, carrots, basil, pumpkins, squash, cucumber).
The biggest challenge with burning so much energy is keeping the boys from wasting away!! Protein powder is a serious staple for our group and somehow makes its way into most meals. If you visit, you will lose weight. There’s no time to sit around and snack all day. If anything, we might skip a meal due to being in the zone on a project or fishing. Plus there are no restaurants within a 2 hour drive to be tempted by! You truly work for your food here!
While in town, there are zero fast-food restaurants and I recommend asking for the check as you order unless you have an extra hour! Good restaurants are few and far between, and finding a healthy option on the a menu is even more rare! We take full advantage of imported foods at restaurants and eating ice cream at every meal. :)
Some foods I miss and cant wait to see/eat while visiting the US:
Once we complete the shopping process, it’s onto the next challenge: no refrigeration. You get really good at knowing what needs to get cooked and eaten first, and portioning so there are no leftovers. For instance, when Erik and I first got here, 3 kg of meat would need to be eaten that day or at least cooked the first day and eaten the next. BUT thank God we have recently upgraded to a COOLER (or 3) and can finally keep things a few days longer!!! Unfortunately, the fresh produce still suffers and the need to drive 45 mins or 2 hours for more ice still exists. The upside is that we’ve had our first cold beers at the property since the coolers’ arrival and can actually purchase and keep specialty items such as sour cream, frozen berries, and shrimp! Keeping bread is a remaining issue with the humidity, along with storing it in the easy-bake oven…we have forgotten it was in there multiple times before starting the oven….
So now that our food is packed away, it’s time to actually cook! To put it in perspective, our group has upgraded from cooking over an open fire, then to a single gas burner, to now having a 3 burner stove top and our grill, both powered by butane gas bottles. For baking, we have a Coleman camping oven that requires a stove top burner. This oven is smaller than a microwave but does NOT hold us back from making pizzas, lasagnas, or Thanksgiving dinner! It just takes a tad longer and is a bit more unpredictable on the temperature side. In fact, we go all out when we cook since it’s all from scratch anyways. Why not make anything and everything!? We are definitely ambitious eaters and chefs around here. You want soft pretzels? No problem! How about a cappuccino? You got it! Fish tacos are your favorite? We’ll make the tortillas, catch, fillet, and grill the fish, and whip up fresh slaw or salsa! Like I said, we can and do make anything, but it takes time, creativity, and possibly some substitutions. Did I mention that we do much of this by the light of a headlamp?
Some of our favorite meals:
- Poached eggs with avocado, salsa, and “toast”
- Vanilla protein crepes with our bananas and shredded coconut, local honey, and imported (Jif!) peanut butter
- Savory crepes with taco-style minced meat (ground beef), scrambled local eggs, imported black beans and burrito toppings
- Whole meal pizza (from scratch) topped with homemade BBQ sauce, local prawns and pineapple, and imported red onions and mozzarella
- Pizza topped with olive oil, our fresh basil, tomatoes, and other veggies
- Fried local chicken (not breaded) in coconut oil with homemade gravy, garlic mashed potatoes, and the best canned corn (imported from Australia) ever!
- Imported ribeyes with shrimp cocktail and roasted veggies
- Crab cakes made from local mud crabs with roasted pumpkin-ginger soup
- Lasagna with local beef, dried mushrooms, shredded zucchini, carrots, and eggplant, with homemade tomato sauce, broiled in our teeny oven
- Fish tacos with either mackerel or Giant Trevally (GT) caught only hours before, in homemade flour rottis (tortillas), topped with fresh carrot-beet slaw and mango salsa made from our pickling-mango tree
**Please keep in mind that when I say "local," that usually means our neighbors!
Our next challenge arises when we start to run out of ingredients. It gets tricky when you can’t just run to the store. So what do you do when you have 2 eggs and 8 people? You make pancakes or crepes! I think I had only made crepes maybe twice ever before moving to Fiji and now it is a weekly occurrence. We made Thanksgiving dinner without any eggs, no refrigerator, stuffing from scratch (I mean we had to bake the bread first!) and had to milk the coconuts for milk.
Another challenge many wouldn’t think about, especially coming from or being in the US, is food choice and availability. Remember how I said Fiji is the US of the 1950s? Well, health and nutrition do not seem to be on their radar just yet. Seeing Fijians eating french fries and drinking Coca-cola at breakfast isn’t unusual. Tang, Oreos, Ritz, etc. are popular and we fall victim to snacking on them as well! In our defense (and perhaps in the Fijians’ defense too), we are extremely active and burn an excess of calories working here and sometimes a cold Coke after building a 3,000 sq ft deck sounds and tastes like heaven on earth! But the majority of our diet consists of lots of coconut (oil, shreds, water, milk), fruit from our trees, seasonal produce from the market or our neighbors, fresh fish we catch (red snapper, parrot fish, Spanish mackerel, grouper, Giant Trevally, mackerel tuna), local rice, and whatever else we’ve grown (beets, tomatoes, ginger, peppers, carrots, basil, pumpkins, squash, cucumber).
The biggest challenge with burning so much energy is keeping the boys from wasting away!! Protein powder is a serious staple for our group and somehow makes its way into most meals. If you visit, you will lose weight. There’s no time to sit around and snack all day. If anything, we might skip a meal due to being in the zone on a project or fishing. Plus there are no restaurants within a 2 hour drive to be tempted by! You truly work for your food here!
While in town, there are zero fast-food restaurants and I recommend asking for the check as you order unless you have an extra hour! Good restaurants are few and far between, and finding a healthy option on the a menu is even more rare! We take full advantage of imported foods at restaurants and eating ice cream at every meal. :)
Some foods I miss and cant wait to see/eat while visiting the US:
- spinach
- kale
- Greek yogurt
- salmon
- ice cream cake
- pretzels (they don’t have them here!!!)
- berries (especially blues and straws)
- asparagus
- frozen drinks
- milk
- cereal
- oysters
- fresh mozzarella
- Papa John’s
- Mexican food
- Panera Bread
- mint
- corn on the cob
- beer (other than Fiji Bitter or Gold)
- cheesecake
- sushi
- turkey
- quinoa
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