The foods and the cooking methods of the ancient people

The first people in the land were very resourceful with their way of life.
They obtained their food from the ocean, the land, and the birds of the
air.
There are many different types of root crops plants, and fish that the
people of the land ate. They also made cooking tools and implements.
Fish has always been an important food staple for the people of the
land. Many types of fish juvenile rabbitfish, adult rabbitfish, parrotfish,
rudderfish, goatfish and juvenile skipjack. Deep sea fish were also
caught such as wahoo, flying fish and marlin. Lobster, clams, crabs,
and other shellfish were eaten as well.
Traditionally, the fishermen shared their catch with those who fished
with them.
Root crops were the wild yam, taro, and arrowroot.
Taro was one of the main staple of the people of the land. It would be
planted in swampland where the dirt was muddy. When taro was
harvested, it was uprooted, washed and cooked in the underground
oven. It could also be boiled and cooked in coconut milk. The other
root crops, wild yams and arrowroot were prepared in a similar way as
the taro. The leaves from the taro were also eaten as a vegetable. The
taro leaves were finely chopped and cooked with water, coconut milk,
and sea salt.
Sometimes fish was added to the taro leaves and cooked together in
coconut milk. The people of the land also planted the seeded bread
fruit. Rice, sugarcane, bananas and coconut.
The bread fruit was an important staple of the people for part of the
year. The flesh of the breadfruit is white when unripe and yellow when
ripe. The breadfruit could be baked under a blanket of hot ashes in an
underground oven or dried in the sun. it could be picked while still
unripe, allowed to soften after a few days and the baked and eaten
with coconuts. Another way breadfruit was cooked is through a process
of slicing them and drying the breadfruit in the sun.
Rice was always been a very important food of the people. It was
eaten on special occasions and served to guest when they visited.
In the past the people grew rice. When the rice was harvested from the
rice field, it was dried and pounded in a stone or wooden mortar to
remove the husk.
A tool fashioned from the spider conch shell called the “sainan do´gas´,
was also used in ancient times as a rice harvesting implement.
´pugas´was the name of the rice after it has been husked.
The shelled rice was mixed with sea salt, and then put in a plated
coconut leaf container called a katupat and cooked in coconut milk or
water.
The rice, once done cooking, was called hineksa´.
The katupat was used as provisions when fishing or working at the
farm.
Rice cooked in water or coconut milk to make a thick liquid or soup is
called alaguan.
The coconut tree offered many good benefits to the lives of the people
of the land and continues to do so today. It can be said that it is a
giving tree. The coconut tree had many uses, especially important was
the coconut meat, coconut oil, coconut juice and coconut milk.
When the coconut husk is green it indicates that the meat inside is soft.
Once the shell is opened, the juice is saved and the meat is scraped
out and mashed.
The people off the land would add coconut juice and rice o mashed
coconut meat to make a drink called laolao. It was served to guests
when they visited. The meat of the older coconut could be grated,
cooked, and made into coconut milk. The coconut oil was used by the
people to rub onto their bodies. The coconut oil kept their bodies warm
when fishing and was also used as medicine. The coconut tree also
provided a drink called ´tuba´.
To make tuba, first a young coconut shoot would be cut and bamboo
container is attached to it to collect the sap.
Each day, the young coconut shoot was cut and the tuba is collected.
The coconut was also used for cooking. The meat from the older green
coconut, called ma´ son, was cooked with crab and shrimp. The hard
meat of the coconut was grated, mixed with water, and squeezed to
make coconut milk which was used to cook with fish and starchy foods.

Laolao was a special drink made of coconut water, young coconut

meat and rice.
Birds were another food staple of the first people. There were several
kinds of edible forest birds that were available for the people of the
land.
These were the Micronesian starling, the white throated ground dove,
the fruit dove, the rail, and the megapode.
Another type of food from the forest was the fruit bat. The fruit bat was
a delicacy of the first people, as it is today.
The people from before used many implements to prepare their foods.
Implements for cooking foods came from plants such as the coconut,
from small seashells, basalt rock, and from clay pottery made of sand
and clay soil. One of the main ways in which the first people cooked
wild yams, taro, arrowroot, breadfruit, and fish was in an earthen oven
called chahan.
First, crops and fish were prepared for the underground oven. Then, a
large hole is dug in the ground in which flattened basalt rocks are
placed on the bottom of the hole. Dry wood and small rocks are placed
on top of the basalt rocks. The wood is burned and they wait until it
burns down to charcoal. The charcoal is removed and the hot rocks are
spread out. After the rocks are spread out, the wild yams, taro,
breadfruit, arrowroot, and fish are placed on top of the rocks and
covered with large leaves, hot rocks and soil. The food is cooked for a
couple of hours, and then the leaves, rocks and soil were removed to
retrieve the delicious food from the earth oven. That was to be
distributed to the people.
Another method of preparing food was by using sea salt. The sea salt
helped to preserve fish to last longer. The mortar and pestle were very
important for the preparation of food such as in making rice flour.
The mortar and pestle were made from basalt rock. The lusong and the
lommok were used for grinding, crushing and processing plants for
food. Things made from plants were also useful in food preparation.
There were many kinds of plaited baskets made from coconut leaves
such as the plaited rice container, the kottot used for gifts of rice, and
the guagua used for carrying freshly caught fish.
Food containers were made from pandanus leaves. Pandanus mats,
called guafak, were used for laying out fish or other foods to dry. Mats
used at mealtimes were called tefan. Food that was cooked in the
chahan was wrapped in banana leaves. Even a fan was useful
because it helped to control a cooking fire.
The bamboo plant had many uses. Containers that carrier water and
food were made from bamboo, and the wood of the bamboo was used
to make very sharp knives.
Other kinds of tools for cooking that were used for processing food
were cutting tools made from shell.
Scrapers called so´so were made of shells and were used to scrape
out the soft meat of the young coconut. Also made of shell and wood
was the kamyo, which was used to grate coconut.

vessels were also very important and could be used for cooking and for
storing food such as preserved fish.
Over time, there were many changes in the types of pottery vessels
that were used.
Anthropologists suggest that were changes in the way food was
prepared in the past.

The people of the land were wise and they knew how to make the most
of all their natural resources from the land and the ocean.
Nature provided for they daily sustenance.