3 dishes people actually cook in Tuvalu: what they are, how long they take, and what you need to buy.
What can you cook from Tuvalu? 3 traditional Tuvalu dishes, from Palusami (75 min, the quickest) to Fekei (120 min, the longest). Each recipe is written step by step with full ingredient lists, free to read.
Tuvalu on the map. Drag to spin the planet.
Fekei, made on every island of Tuvalu, is grated pulaka corm wrapped in its own leaves, steamed, then worked with coconut cream.
Raw reef fish is cured in lime until the outside turns opaque, then the juice is poured off and thick coconut cream takes its place.
Taro leaves folded around thick coconut cream, onion and lime juice, then baked in parcels until the leaves melt, eaten in Tuvalu with taro or breadfruit.
Copper documents three dishes from Tuvalu: Fekei, Ota ika and Palusami. Coconut cream and onion each appear in more than one recipe. Two of the three are baked. Two of the three need an oven. Between them they use 14 different ingredients.
The three recipes need 14 ingredients between them, of which 2 are shared by more than one dish. Coconut cream the hardest to find: of the 586 dishes in Copper's atlas, 22 use coconut cream. Every ingredient list on this page is complete, with quantities, and free to read.
Palusami is the quickest at 75 minutes. Fekei is the longest at 120 minutes, most of it unattended. The median is 100 minutes — a weekend dish rather than a weeknight one.
Ota ika is rated easy — start there. The full method is on its recipe page, step by step, free to read.
Tuvalu is part of Pacific Island.
Countries close to Tuvalu on the globe — and close on the plate.
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