COPPERWhat is the national dish of the Marshall Islands?
The Marshall Islands has no official national dish. Lists online name barramundi cod, a whole reef fish baked in banana leaves, and macadamia nut pie, but we found no official source for either. The food at the heart of Marshallese cooking is breadfruit: roasted, pounded with coconut cream into a pudding, or fermented into bwiro, which keeps for months.
Barramundi cod and macadamia nut pie: where the claim comes from
Search for the national dish of the Marshall Islands and two answers come up again and again: barramundi cod and macadamia nut pie. Both appear in Wikipedia's list of national dishes and in the infobox of its article on Marshallese cuisine, without a supporting reference, and travel food guides repeat them.
Barramundi cod is the common name of the humpback grouper. Travel Food Atlas describes the Marshallese dish as a whole fish, seasoned, tightly wrapped in banana leaves and baked so it stays moist, served with chukuchuk, sweet potato and salad. Majuro, the capital, is described as the busiest tuna transshipment port in the world, so fish is never far away. The pie it describes has a shredded coconut crust and a macadamia filling, served at celebrations.
Neither claim rests on a law, a government statement or a cultural body that we could find. So the honest answer is that there are several candidates, and that the one with the deepest roots is not either of them.
Breadfruit, the real Marshallese staple
Breadfruit, mā in Marshallese, has long been the standard starchy staple of the islands. Research quoted in Wikipedia's article on Marshallese cuisine calls it the most important and socially shared traditional Marshallese food. It is eaten roasted, boiled or fried, and preserved.
The preserved form is bwiro: breadfruit paste that is fermented, wrapped in banana leaves and cooked in an underground oven. Properly made, it keeps for many months without spoiling, which mattered on atolls where harvests were seasonal.
The sweet form is breadfruit pudding. Our breadfruit pudding recipe has no eggs and no custard:
- Choose a breadfruit that yields slightly under the thumb, then peel, quarter and core it.
- Boil it 20 minutes, or roast it over embers for a smoky edge.
- Pound it hot with 400 ml of thick first-press coconut cream, 100 g of sugar and a pinch of salt. Canned coconut milk is thinner and leaves the pudding slack.
- Press it about 4 cm deep into banana leaves and bake 30 minutes at 180°C, in place of the traditional um, the earth oven.
- Let it cool in the leaves until it firms enough to cut, then serve it in squares at room temperature.
Pandanus and mokwan, food that keeps for years
Pandanus, bōb in Marshallese, is the other tree the atolls depend on. Its fruit is cooked for hours in an earth oven, scraped to extract the orange pulp, spread on leaves and dried in the sun for several days, then rolled and tied tightly in pandanus leaves. The result is a paste that stays edible for years.
It is called mokwan on the northern Ratak atolls of Ailuk, Likiep and Mejit, and jããnkun on Ujae, Lae and Wotho in the Ralik chain. Its flavour is close to dried dates or figs. Our mokwan page explains each stage; it cannot be reproduced without an earth oven and tropical sun, so the paste is usually sliced and worked with coconut cream to serve. Kiribati makes the same paste as te tuae: see the national dish of Kiribati.
Other dishes to know from the Marshall Islands
Fish is the other half of the diet: the average Marshallese eats about 240 pounds of it a year, and the language has some 50 words and phrases for fishing techniques alone.
Mashed taro is made from swamp taro, iaraj in Marshallese, grown in freshwater pits. It is the large, fibrous Cyrtosperma kind, not the small dasheen, and its raw sap irritates the skin, so it is peeled with gloves. The corms are boiled 30 to 40 minutes, crushed coarsely while hot, and folded with thick coconut cream off the heat; some households add coconut sap syrup.
Chukuchuk, rice shaped into balls and rolled in grated coconut, is served at every special occasion, including the kemem, the party for a child's first birthday. At a kemem, guests are encouraged to take a household item home, and a family's generosity is measured by how little it has left at the end.
Food also carries rank. It is a Marshallese custom to bring food to the iroij, the chiefs, as a sign of recognition and respect. Copra, the dried coconut kernel, remains a major export and is pressed for oil.
You will find all three recipes on our page about the food of the Marshall Islands, more in our guide to Pacific Island food, and the neighbouring story in our article on the national dish of Micronesia.
The recipes
- Breadfruit pudding🇲🇭 Marshall Islands · 2 hours and 5 minutes
Mashed taro🇲🇭 Marshall Islands · 1 hour
Mokwaṇ🇲🇭 Marshall Islands · 3 days and 4 hours
Questions people ask
Is barramundi cod the national dish of the Marshall Islands?
It is often listed as such, along with macadamia nut pie, but no official source backs either claim. Breadfruit is the traditional staple.
What is bwiro?
Bwiro is fermented breadfruit paste, wrapped in banana leaves and cooked in an underground oven. It can be kept for many months without spoiling.
What is mokwan?
Mokwan is a dried pandanus paste from the Marshall Islands, also called jããnkun. It is cooked, sun-dried and rolled in pandanus leaves, and keeps for years.
What is a kemem?
A kemem is the Marshallese celebration of a child's first birthday, where a large spread of Marshallese dishes such as chukuchuk is served.
What is the national drink of the Marshall Islands?
Coconut water is the drink listed for the Marshall Islands. Jekaro, the sweet sap of the coconut tree's flower stalk, is another traditional drink.
Keep reading
- Traditional food of the Marshall Islands: 12 dishes to know
- What is the national dish of Fiji?
- What is the national dish of Kiribati?
- What is the national dish of Micronesia?
- What is the national dish of Nauru?
- What is the national dish of New Zealand?