home?

Vox Pop WORD ON THE STREET

BY MARY ASEARI

What food reminds you of home?

VICTOR GAMINI

21, marketing director, Oro The food that reminds me of home is fish. Growing up in the coastal area of PNG, fish was a staple protein for many of us. Every time I get the chance to eat fish, it brings back childhood memories, and of course home.

NAPHTALI ALU

51, foreman, Central

CHRISTINA STEVEN

23, self-employed, Southern Highlands Mumu kaikai reminds me of home. Mumu is a traditional way of cooking vegetables in a pit with hot stones. This way of cooking is mostly done in the highlands region of PNG. When I see people cooking sweet potatoes and pork in a pot in the city it reminds me of my village and of how we used to do mumu. But I think mumu from a pit with hot stones is more delicious than from a pot. For me, the food that reminds me of home is mango. I have fond memories of being a boy, climbing mango trees in the village with my mates. We would enjoy a sweet juicy mango on sunny days.

FRANCESCA FUALE

49, teacher, Sandaun As a proud woman from the Sandaun Province, the food that reminds me of home is one that is synonymous with the Sepik region, and that is nangu. Nangu is a traditional dish that is made from mixing sago with water to make a porridgelike mixture. My favourite is nangu dipped in chicken or fish soup. One taste and I’m back home in my mum’s haus kuk, watching her cook this beautiful meal. JEANELE EWANDE

21, student, Kentucky, US The food that reminds me of home is aibika greased in heavy coconut cream, with chicken and vegetables like taro and banana. This is the type of food that my whole family contributes to cooking on Sundays. Most Sundays we’d drive to Erap to visit my dad’s younger brother and his family, where we’d cook the food. Erap is filled with the ingredients needed for this dish. It’s a dish that brings the whole family together. I miss it.

FYI AROUND TOWN

BY CARMEL PILOTTI, RUBY GAMOGA, ROBERT HAMILTON-JONES | PHOTOGRAPHS: GODFREEMAN KAPTIGAU, DEAN AREK & SUPPLIED BY EDGE CAFE

Big crowd for cultural gallery

With a focus on cultural artefacts and locally made products, the APEC Haus Cultural Gallery drew a big crowd on the last Saturday of February. It featured paintings, carvings and other traditional crafts, mainly from the KiriwinaGoodenough district of Milne Bay.

Despite the rainy weather, vendors arrived in droves for the opportunity to showcase their art to potential buyers.

Besides art and craft, another huge part of Papua New Guinean culture is food, and event-goers had a chance to experience the unique cuisine of the region, which is not so readily available out of Milne Bay Province.

Events such as this were frequent before the pandemic, however, since the first wave of COVID-19 hit the shores of the nation’s capital there have been very few. It was a hopeful sight to once again see the popularity of the cultural gallery.

The event was organised by Joyce Grant, who has nominated as a candidate for the KiriwinaGoodenough seat in the upcoming national elections. (See our guide to the elections on Page 34.)

The day’s cultural showcase led to a gala dinner the same night, also at the APEC Haus, showcasing fashion from local designers and entertainment by Mereani Masani

CP

Art and craft, showcased at APEC Haus.

A piece of cake

It’s Friday morning and Edge Cafe, waterside at Harbour City, is buzzing. The customers at the outside tables are mostly having informal meetings. With its pleasant, tranquil setting plus easy parking, it’s not hard to see why this place is so popular with the business community and nearby residents alike.

A new range of homemade cakes are another reason the cafe stands out.

We tried a chocolate muffin, dotted with soft caramel. Edge claims its cakes are “made for the soul” and I concede this could well be Port Moresby’s best muffin.

The cafe’s most popular confections at the moment are the chocolate brownie (dipped in real chocolate) and the carrot cake (with dainty lemon frosting).

If you’ve reached your coffee quota for the day, there are also

Homemade cakes at the Edge Cafe, made for the soul.

great freshly squeezed juices.

RHJ Edge Cafe, Harbour City, open daily from 7am, facebook.com/ edgebythesea

Above: Participants in the barista training course. Left: One of the delicious brews poured at Deborah’s Country Cafe.

Finding coffee bliss

Without exaggeration, I can say that the best cup of coffee I’ve had was made at a recent barista training session at a little-known hideout at Port Moresby’s Unity Mall, Deborah’s Country Cafe.

Creamy, rich, aromatic; the first whiff triggered those feel-good endorphins just before the heavenly first sip.

The barista training session was run by Pacific Horticultural & Agricultural Market Access Plus program (PHAMA) in partnership with the PNG Coffee Industry Corporation (CIC), and was started to help women SME owners to improve their coffeemaking skills.

The training includes everything from being able to identify quality beans, to understanding the roasting process, brewing, steaming and, finally, cupping.

The superb coffees we sampled were accompanied by lip-smacking pineapple tarts and I left wondering why I hadn’t known of Deborah’s before. This SME cafe, owned by three women business partners, is certainly a must visit.

PHAMA provides practical and targeted assistance to Pacific Island countries in the management and regulation of primary and value-added products. There have also been barista training sessions in Goroka, Lae and Mt Hagen. CP

Year of the Tiger celebrated

To celebrate the Chinese Year of the Tiger, the Cathay Club Lion Dancers put on a spectacle at Port Moresby’s Vision City Mega Mall recently.

Steady rhythms beaten out on the traditional lion drum, accompanied by the clashing of cymbals, created an atmosphere of anticipation through which the traditions of a thousand years echoed, and the lions ruled – expelling evil spirits and bringing good fortune to those they visited.

Groups of captivated onlookers followed the dancers through the mall, phone cameras held aloft.

Performers from the Cathay Club at Vision City.

The Cathay troupe carried out the three-hour performance with unwavering fervour, visiting each shop that had an offering or gift, which they traded for a few minutes of leaps, pirouettes and playful theatrics as a blessing.

Cathay’s creative performance director, Pyan Ng, told PNG Now that the troupe started training for the performance last November.

The finale was spectacular, with the explosion of strings of firecrackers suspended from the mall entrance roof. CP

Moresby’s history laid bare in cheeky coffeetable book

Did you know that where present-day Illusions stands there used to be a nightclub called Sirocco, named after the yacht of one-time Papua New Guinean resident and infamous Hollywood actor Errol Flynn?

What about the fact that early Motuans, alleged descendants of Lapita-trading travellers, built their villages along Port Moresby’s shoreline not just because they had no traditional land ownership, but also because they thought the water divide protected them from Koiari sorcerers inland?

These are the types of stories, otherwise lost to history or arcane academic journals, penned in the new coffee-table book and part-time travelogue Eda Moresby (Eda is Motuan for ‘our’).

The book is by moonlighting author and history maven John Brooksbank. The idea for the collection was suggested to him over a morning catch-up with friends at Duffy Cafe: because he talked extensively about Port Moresby’s history in his writerly stints, why not collate the stories into a book, they asked?

“Sorry for not being more erudite,” Brooksbank laughs, when asked if there was some other reason to the compilation. There isn’t. Only, hopefully, the reciprocal delight of his readers.

The characters and anecdotes in Eda Moresby are entertaining, scandalous and surprising – even by PNG standards – and the reader is guided, with vivid imagery and Brooksbank’s tongue-incheek commentary, through the city’s haphazard development from prehistorical trading hotspot to colonial outpost, to World War 2 base, and presenttime ever-growing capital.

Oldtimers, Australians, the mixed-race diaspora (who constitute many of today’s movers and shakers) and anyone interested in the ‘unofficial’ version of Moresby’s beginnings and development

WHERE TO FIND US

PNG Now has extensive distribution in cafes, hotels and other social hubs.

In Port Moresby, this includes Duffy outlets, Airways Hotel, The Hilton and The Stanley (cafes), Port Moresby Chamber of Commerce and Industry, CHM at Vision City, the POM City Markets and Harbourside Night Markets.

In Lae, it can be picked up at the Lae Chamber of Commerce and the Lae International Hotel. will particularly enjoy the special sections on street names (many roads are named after early administration officers), landmarks (derived from Motu-Koita words butchered by Caucasian accents) and the not-of-her-time exploits of mysterious Irish writer Miss Grimshaw. RG

Eda Moresby is K250 and is available through eda. moresby@gmail.com.