Going Where The Wind Blows The Chens Planting Tribal Churches in Papua New Guinea New Flash – we have updated our most current prayer requests found on the “Ministry & Prayer” page on top. If you ask anybody on the street, “what is your favorite food?”…ten out of ten people here will say, “saksak!” Saksak is the main staple food here in the Sepik region. It is said that the people will not think they had a real meal unless they ate saksak. The process of making saksak is laborious and complicated (at least for me!) Saksak is made out of sago tree which are generally found in swamps. It is pretty much all starch. People cut sago trees down and remove the bark. They take their wooden axes and just beat the pith into a pulp. Water is then used to dissolve all the starch in the pith and “saksak water” is collected. After the starch settles, saksak is collected, dried and stored. People here in town usually just buy the dried saksak instead of making it themselves. We will have a chance to see the entire process when we go into the bush next month.
When they want to eat it, they cut off a block of dried saksak and just let it dissolve in water. It looks like a “flour paste”…
Then they mix hot water with the saksak mixture and the liquid paste solidifies into a jelly-like mixture…
People here usually eat saksak with some veggies cooked in coconut milk. I brought a piece of fish the other day and they smoked iand put it into the pot…
All done…ready to serve!
Well…how did it taste? I did manage to flush down two “balls” of saksak and my friends were very proud of me! They all said, “you are done learning…you are a Papua New Guinean now!” Food is always a big part in any culture…so venturing into their world of fine cuisine definitely went a long way in building relationships. The taste…well, let me put it very “politely”…is an acquired taste. There is no gastronomical equivalence of saksak in our western cuisine. Let’s just say I “took one for the team” today!
