Tag: Fiji Islands

The breadfruits and the jackfruits of Fiji

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A zoomed view of the greenery from the balcony of my current home in Fiji. Our tropical weather allows us to have the best of the best organic fruits and vegetables

This week I broke my fast at a Fijian friend’s house – she is married to an Emirati so the Iftar fare was a mixture of Arabic and Fijian cuisine. The reason I was there was because Rajah (my friend) had brought some breadfruit and cooked it in Fijian style with Roti and wanted me to go down memory lane as we enjoyed our iftar experience.

Fijian cuisine is unique and often one can’t recreate the taste elsewhere although in some cases one can come close. I have been battling to make soft round roti’s and curries abroad for years but because its hard to get fresh organic ingredients easily in other countries, the taste is never the same.

Occasionally we get overjoyed when we see a rare vegetable that we associate to our extensive Fijian produce and are able to cook it Fijian style as we have all the vegetables the rest of the world has but more….where else can you get a vegetable as tasty as daruka. (this is not going to be another whitebait style story, I swear. In my defence, there is no fish in the world that is as delicious as whitebait so I had to gloat about the fact that we get it in Fiji and my family always keeps this rare treat for me when it is in season)

In Fiji, we love our root crops – so instead of eating bread and rice all the time, we get our carbs through tapioca, yam (dalo), taro, breadfruits, sweet potatoes etc. We are also super lucky that our cuisine is influenced by old-world civilizations mainly Polynesian/Melanesians, Indians and Chinese with a dose of influence from our Kiwi and Aussie neighbours.

Our styles of cooking happen to be an interesting experience as well. As Polynesians, we love cooking lovo (food marinated and cooked underground on hot stones) often accompanied with root crops. We also enjoy spicy Indian cuisine and Chinese delicacies  (our chop suey, chow mien and stir fries are out of this world).

Our cooks, family members and young chefs are spoilt for choice when it comes to the variety of fresh food so they use their imaginations to experiment and come up with amazing food that Fijians abroad and visitors of Fiji keep coming back for. We come from a world where we can cook fresh white fish entirely in lemon juice, wash it and make a mean salad (kokonda) that our visitors talk about for days.

I also remember the times in Dubai both me and Rajah go scouring for jackfruit in Karama when we craved Fijian food – being a snobbish marama, I normally would not venture to Karama for love or for money but for jackfruit, or any Fijian delicacy, I am willing to put up with anything. Eaten ripe, jackfruits are the most sweetest and succulents of desserts (very popular in Asia) but I prefer the young ones cut in small pieces and fried with garlic, onion, chillies and tumeric with Fijian style roti.

I still go to Lulu Supermarket to get the ripe ones from Malaysia for my better half and the raw ones for me to cook with. In Thailand, the ripe ones are cut in small pieces and served in sweet coconut milk as desserts….lush! What is great also is that the green jackfruit is full of vitamins that helps to prevent many sicknesses like fighting cancer and lowering blood pressure.

Its going to be Eid next week and I certainly will miss my usual delicacies like fried jackfruit and going to the amazing markets in Fiji full of organic food fresh from the farms every morning. I’m glad though that NJD is coming back to Dubai post Eid and is bring me back some of the Eid goodies like barfi, coconut candy and a few other decadent and sinful things that I so enjoy!

In the meantime, I want to get my retirement sorted in Fiji – with the world in chaos, it’s about time I earned in Fiji dollars and enjoyed life under a coconut palm complete with a drink that has a multi-coloured umbrella in it. (I can see my stalker and the green-eyed monsters hoping a coconut would fall on my head and put a stop to this drivel). Oh well! – a girl can dream!

Mike Rutzen at Atlantis – education on Great White Sharks

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With Mike Rutzen & the beautiful Rima at The Lost Chambers, Atlantis

After driving on race tracks, bashing dunes, sky diving and generally doing anything that raises the blood pressure, my next big adrenaline driven adventure will be diving with sharks…..inspired by none other than Michael Rutzen, who is known as one of the few people in the world who free-dives with Great White Sharks and campaigns for their preservation around the world.

Mike is so passionate describing his unique adventures as he travels extensively around the world to create an understanding and respect for this great predator, sharing his knowledge and involving as many people as possible in his conservation battle.  I met Mike at Atlantis, The Lost Chambers as he was with the Atlantis Marine Team who are keen to go to Fiji to experience the awesome dive sites there. (I reckon I have convinced marine conservationist, the beautiful  Rima Jabado to hang out in my flat in Nadi while doing day trips diving near untouched islands – since we have over 330 beautiful islands, it’s a diver’s dream paradise)

Mike Rutzen is sweet, down to earth and if you love the marine world as much as I do being an Island girl, watch Mike’s travels and activities which are extensively documented on TV programmes including ‘Beyond Fear’ with National Geographic, ‘Sharkman’ and ‘Shark Night’ on Discovery Channel, ‘60 Minutes special’  with Anderson Cooper, ‘The Great White Shark’ on CNN and ‘A Living Legend’ on BBC Natural World. Mike has been face to face with one of the greatest predators in the world, with no protection and no fear!

I hope someday I also get to spend some time with Steve Kaiser of the Marine Sciences and Engineering team at Atlantis –  I believe he works hard to provide education to the masses about sharks through a number of activities including the thrilling Shark Dive in the Shark Lagoon at Atlantis. It would also be great to talk more about Rima and her work on marine conservation and I reckon that will be a whole new blog on its own…watch this space.

Guests to the next Lost Chambers ‘Family Fun Day’ will be able to meet Michael Rutzen and hear him speak about Shark Conservation. Other Atlantis activities include special educational sessions with marine animal specialists, interaction with the Atlantis scuba divers, touch and feel marine exhibits, face painting, treasure hunts etc.

You can also meet ‘Shark Man’ Mike face to face as he will describe tales of his adventures diving and protecting sharks around the globe on Saturday. In his talk “The Great White Shark Carcharodon Carcharias – Behaviour and Conservation,” He will tell stories about diving with sharks; his free-diving and behavioural observations; eco-tourism as a winning solution and his research and future projects.

I warn you though…Mike is so passionate about his work, the enthusiasm rubs off on you and like me, you will find yourself navigating the high seas in no time! Thanks to the awesome team at Atlantis who always have interesting activities lined up at The Lost Chambers for kids like little diva @NJD2000, we as adults also end up learning about environment, conservation in a beautiful setting like Atlantis.

I am starting diving courses with Al Boom next month when my traumatised left arm is back in action so I can do the shark dive at Atlantis – super excited. (And no…the arm was not traumatised flipping the car on a race track as all my near and dear ones seem to think).