Local Dishes

1. ʻOta ika

   ʻOta ika (raw fish cured in citrus, dressed with coconut cream)

   Usage

   The Tongan dish you will see named most often: raw fish cured in lime or lemon, then dressed with coconut cream, onion and tomato. It turns up on hotel buffets and at roadside stalls alike. NOTE: Samoan calls the same dish oka iʻa; in Tonga it is spelled ʻota ika (ika "fish" carries no fakauʻa)

   Grammar Note

   "ʻota" means "raw" and "ika" means "fish". "ʻota ʻika" is a traditional Tongan dish similar to poke. The "ʻika" in English-language sources is a transcription error: Tongan ika ("fish") has no fakauʻa.

2. Lū

   Lū (taro leaves baked with coconut cream)

   Usage

   Chopped taro leaves (lū talo) wrapped around a filling with coconut cream, bundled in banana leaf or foil and baked in the ʻumu. It is the centrepiece of Sunday meals and feasts, and is named after the filling: lū pulu, lū sipi, lū moa (chicken), lū ika (fish)

   Grammar Note

   Luu means taro leaves used as food. NOTE: Hawaiian lūʻau and Samoan luʻau are cognates, but Tongan does not add the ʻau

3. Lū pulu

   Lū pulu (taro leaves baked with corned beef and coconut cream)

   Usage

   The commonest form of lū: tinned corned beef mixed with onion and coconut cream, wrapped in taro leaves and baked. You will meet it in eateries, at feasts and in any home you are invited to

   Grammar Note

   pulu = beef. The compound is "lu pulu" (corned beef and boiled taro in coconut cream)

4. Lū sipi

   Lū sipi (taro leaves baked with mutton and coconut cream)

   Usage

   The mutton version of lū, normally made with the cheap New Zealand mutton flaps that dominate Tongan shops, so it is a fatty dish. At a feast it is set out alongside lū pulu

   Grammar Note

   sipi = sheep. The compound is "lu sipi" (palusami with mutton)

5. ʻUmu

   ʻUmu (the earth oven, and the food cooked in it)

   Usage

   A pit is dug, stones are heated in it, wrapped food is laid on them and covered with earth and leaves to steam for hours. Lū, pork and root crops are all cooked this way. The biggest ʻumu of the week is the meal after Sunday worship (Sāpate) — and note that Clause 6 of the Constitution of Tonga bars trading on the Sabbath, so shops and eateries are almost all shut that day

   Grammar Note

   "ʻumu" means "oven, food cooked in an oven". It is used as in "ʻufiʻufi ʻumu" (to cover the umu).

6. Puaka toho

   Puaka toho (a whole roast pig of the largest grade, for a feast)

   Usage

   Tongan pigs are graded by size, and puaka toho is the largest grade, roasted whole. It is carried in for weddings, funerals and formal presentations and carved outward from the highest-ranking row. It is also the centrepiece of the tourist "Tongan feast"

   Grammar Note

   puaka = pig / pork, toho = to pull. "puaka toho" is a very big roast pig, so big that it is dragged along.

7. Pola

   Pola (a plaited coconut-leaf tray laid with one person's share of a feast)

   Usage

   A Tongan feast is not served on plates: the food is laid out along a plaited coconut-leaf frame and each guest sits at their own pola. Whatever you cannot finish is normally taken home

   Grammar Note

   Pola means plaited coconut leaves used for making walls or roof, or as a food-tray

8. Faikakai

   Faikakai (a pudding of starchy food in sweet coconut sauce)

   Usage

   The general Tongan word for the sweet course: breadfruit (faikakai mei), taro (faikakai talo) or cassava is softened, then dressed with a sauce of coconut cream and brown sugar. It closes a feast or a Sunday meal

   Grammar Note

   "Faikakai" covers native puddings of various kinds. It means food cooked with coconut cream, and also a preparation of softened breadfruit.

9. Topai

   Topai (boiled flour dumplings in coconut-and-sugar syrup)

   Usage

   Flour and water worked into a paste, dropped into boiling water and served in a syrup of sugar and coconut cream. Because hundreds of servings can be made quickly it is the standard funeral food, and it is also served under the name faikakai topai

   Grammar Note

   "Topai" is a type of boiled dumpling made from a mixture of coconut and flour.

10. Mā pakupaku

    Mā pakupaku (hard plain ship's biscuit)

    Usage

    The plain hard cracker sold all over the South Pacific. It began as a shipboard staple and is still on the shelf of every small shop and outer-island store; it is usually dunked in tea

    Grammar Note

    "mā pakupaku" means biscuits (dried biscuits); "ngeʻesi kapa mā" is an empty biscuit tin. Bare mā means bread.

11. Talo

    Taro

    Usage

    The most prestigious of the Tongan staples. The corm is baked in its skin in the ʻumu or boiled, and served alongside lū and meat; the leaves of the same plant become lū

12. ʻUfi

    Yam

    Usage

    Socially the weightiest of the root crops: yams are what is presented to the royal family and the church, so you will meet them at a feast more often than at an everyday meal

    Grammar Note

    "ʻUfi" is yam; ʻufilei is a variety closer to potato or sweet potato. The look-alike "ʻufiʻufi" means "to cover" and is a different word.

13. Mānioke

    Cassava

    Usage

    A nineteenth-century introduction. It lacks the prestige of the yam but grows easily, and it is now the everyday staple — boiled or baked in the ʻumu, and also the base of some faikakai

    Grammar Note

    "Mānioke" is cassava. "manioke kai" (edible cassava) is distinguished from "manioke kokaʻanga" (the dye kind).

14. Kumala

    Sweet potato

    Usage

    Boiled or baked in the ʻumu and served as a staple. In the market it is heaped up beside talo, ʻufi and mānioke

15. Mei

    Breadfruit

    Usage

    In season it is baked whole in the ʻumu, and it is the base of faikakai mei (breadfruit pudding). NOTE: the identically spelled mei is also the preposition "from", which is far commoner in running text

    Grammar Note

    "mei" has two separate words: "breadfruit" (noun) and "from" (preposition). "Ko e mei ko ha meʻakai mahuʻinga lahi ʻi Tongá ni" (mei is a very important food in Tonga).

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