COPPERWhat is the national dish of Samoa?
Samoa has no official national dish, but palusami is the one most often named: young taro leaves folded around thick coconut cream and onion, often with corned beef, then baked for hours in the umu, the Samoan oven of hot stones. Oka i'a, raw fish in lime and coconut cream, is the other Samoan classic.
Is palusami Samoa's national dish?
Not officially. No law names a Samoan national dish, and independent Samoa has no entry of its own on Wikipedia's list of national dishes. That list does give palusami for American Samoa, citing a 1977 book on the two Samoas.
Palusami is also the dish travel and cultural sources single out. Wikivoyage's guide says you should not leave Samoa without trying it, and the Polynesian Cultural Center describes it as a traditional Samoan dish. Related taro-leaf parcels exist across Polynesia, such as lū in Tonga and laulau in Hawaii, but the name palusami is Samoan.
What is in palusami?
The name is thought to come from *palu (lu'au) sami*, "taro leaves mixed with sea water", or from *pa'apa'a (lu'au) sami*, "to cook taro leaves with sea water on the fire". The dish is sometimes simply called lu'au. Like much Samoan food it is *lolo*, rich with thick coconut cream, not to be confused with sweetened cream of coconut.
The vegetarian base is taro leaves, coconut cream and onion. Beef is the usual addition, either salted beef (*povi masima*) or canned corned beef, called *pīsupo*. In our palusami recipe:
- About 40 young taro leaves have their thick stems and tips snapped off.
- 800 ml of thick coconut cream is mixed with a chopped onion, salt, pepper and the juice of half a lemon.
- Five or six leaves are stacked into a cup in the palm, filled with about 100 ml of the mixture and folded shut, then wrapped in banana leaf or foil.
- At home the parcels bake in a dish with 3 cm of water, covered, at 180 °C for 3 hours 30 to 4 hours, until the filling turns thick and dark green.
Why palusami cooks so long
Raw taro leaves contain calcium oxalate, which burns the mouth and itches in the throat. Only long cooking destroys it, which is why palusami is never rushed and taro leaves are never tasted raw.
In Samoa the parcels go into the umu. A fire is built, stones are heated on it, and once it has burned down to embers the food goes on the stones: palusami, green bananas, breadfruit, taro, fish and pork, covered with banana leaves. Many families share an umu on Sunday afternoons.
The umu holds the whole meal, from a whole pig, fresh seaweed and crayfish to baked taro and rice. Wikivoyage notes that Samoan food is not highly spiced or seasoned, relying instead on coconut, taro, breadfruit and green bananas, and that the market in Apia is the easiest place for visitors to find it.
Oka i'a and fa'alifu fa'i
Oka i'a is the Samoan raw fish: small cubes of fresh fish marinated in lime juice, then mixed with coconut cream, tomato, onion, cucumber, salt and pepper and served chilled, often garnished with lime wedges. Wikivoyage describes the Samoan way as small bits of fish in lemon juice, coconut cream, salt and finely chopped onion. It belongs to the same family as Tongan 'ota 'ika; see the national dish of Tonga.
Fa'alifu fa'i is a starch, not a dessert. Eight peeled green bananas boil about 20 minutes in salted water, then simmer five minutes in 400 ml of coconut cream cooked with onion and salt. It is served hot next to fish or meat.
Other dishes to know from Samoa
Pisupo, from "pea soup", one of the first canned foods to reach the islands, now means canned food in general and corned beef in particular. It is eaten with white rice or coconut rice, cooked into sapasui with noodles, or mixed with spaghetti. Samoa also grows cocoa, drunk as koko Samoa or cooked into koko alaisa, a cocoa rice pudding.
Corned beef is so central that cans of it are now a common gift at weddings and birthdays. Coconut also goes beyond cream: samilolo is a sauce made from the flesh of a green young coconut and sea water, cooked inside the nut on an open flame and then fermented, and breadfruit is often roasted and served with stone-cooked coconut sauce.
All three recipes are on our page about the food of Samoa, and the region is covered in our guide to Pacific Island food. For the other Samoa, see the national dish of American Samoa.
The recipes
- Palusami🇼🇸 Samoa · 4 hours and 30 minutes
Oka i'a🇼🇸 Samoa · 30 minutes
Fa'alifu fa'i🇼🇸 Samoa · 40 minutes
Questions people ask
Is palusami Samoan or Tongan?
The name palusami is Samoan. Tonga makes a closely related taro-leaf parcel called lū, and similar dishes exist across Polynesia.
What is served with palusami?
Boiled taro root, breadfruit or roast pork, usually one or two parcels per person.
Can you make palusami with spinach?
Yes. Samoans living abroad often use spinach in place of taro leaves, and bake it as a casserole when they cannot wrap parcels.
What is pisupo?
Pisupo is the Samoan word for canned food, especially corned beef. It comes from "pea soup", one of the first canned foods sold on the islands.
What is an umu?
The umu is the Samoan oven of hot stones above ground, where food is laid on the heated stones and covered with banana leaves.
Keep reading
- Traditional food of Samoa: 12 dishes to know
- What is the national dish of Fiji?
- What is the national dish of Kiribati?
- What is the national dish of the Marshall Islands?
- What is the national dish of Micronesia?
- What is the national dish of Nauru?