Prep time: 10 mnutes + 3 weeks

Serves: 4

The feedback from blog readers is resounding:  Post more recipes!  Well, ok.  Tuamotus fried rice is an exotic dish that will have your dinner guests dreaming of palm trees in a tropical breeze.

But what’s the backstory!?  Who are the ingredients?  What drives them, and how did they meet?

The story of this meal begins 60 million years ago, deep beneath the South Pacific, with the formation of the Tuamotus archipelago.  Today, these islands are coral atolls.  Their tall volcanic centers have long ago subsided beneath the sea, leaving only large circles of coral reef.  The Polynesian name Tuamotus translates roughly to: All tutus, no ballerinas.

Our quest for the perfect ingredients began on April 30th when we arrived in the Tuamotus at the atoll of Raroia.  After a four night passage from the Marquesas we were eager to enter the tidal pass to anchor inside its protected lagoon.  We motored into the outgoing current of the pass a little earlier than we had calculated was ideal, deciding that pluck and determination would more than compensate for perfect tidal conditions.  Or maybe not.  The current was too strong, and Mandolyn was spit unceremoniously back into the deep Pacific.  In retrospect, we could have used just a touch more pluck.

It’s hard to describe the surreal feeling inside these atolls.  There’s only a thin reef on all sides, under continuous assault from the crashing Pacific swell.  The internal lagoons are huge, beautiful, and relatively calm.  The surrounding reefs are dotted with motus, thin islands made of coral debris, often lush with palm trees and bushes despite the marginal soil.  On these motus everywhere you go you are walking on some form of coral, finely crushed, medium grade, or solid conglomerate.  The average elevation in the atolls is only a couple of meters and rainfall is the only fresh water source. 

Despite the lack of soil and water, the islands are dotted with small villages, home to approximately 16,000 people.  I don’t think these communities will survive sea level rise.  Life here seems beautiful and tenuous. 

The caretaker of a defunct pearl farm gave us a tour one day, speaking to us in French, Polynesian and a little English.  We think he told us he had 8 kids, but it’s possible his kids are made of wheat.  He had an impressive garden, with each plant growing in a tiny depression in the coral filled with precious soil.  He insisted on giving us 2 papayas, which was incredibly generous.

Papayas are not an ingredient of this recipe.

Our next stop was the uninhabited atoll of Tahanea.  It was here that Sarah one day made the ominous pronouncement:  “The Mara’amu is rising!”  Sarah keeps a close eye on the weather forecasts, as well as the forecast commentary, the commentary on the commentary, the twitter feeds of all meteorologists, and the chatter from the underground meteorological dark web.  We pay attention to her ominous pronouncements.

The Mara’amu is a strong wind pattern that can set up in this area.  Because the atolls are circles, when strong weather is predicted all the boats move to the sheltered windward edge to wait things out.  This weather event was the hot gossip of the Pacific for the next week.  A few boats dragged their anchors.  One unlucky boat in a nearby atoll was struck by lightning, destroying many of their electronics. 

At Tahanea Sarah perfected her strategy for opening a coconut with a hatchet. 

Coconut is not an ingredient of this recipe.

Our final atoll in the Tuamotus would be Fakarava.  The big show.  This atoll has a large village, home to almost a thousand people.  Fresh supplies are delivered on a ship once every two weeks.  We arrived at anchor the morning after the supply ship and hurried to the store, eager for the first fresh produce we would see in 3 weeks.  We got to the store around 11am, a little later than ideal, but again our pluck and determination was in full effect.

The produce shelves were bare.  The stores open at 6am and on supply day every scurvy fearing human in the area swarm like locusts, denuding the shelves of anything remotely organic, for another 2 weeks.  The lack of produce was disappointing, but we did manage to find everything we needed for this tasty meal.

And that brings us back to the main attraction, at last, the recipe:

Ingredients

1 can of spam, cubed

1 can of who cares what vegetable

4 cups cooked leftover rice

3 tbsp vegetable oil

2 eggs, beaten

2 tbsp soy sauce

1 tbsp literally any other sauce

2 tsp sesame oil

¼ tsp black pepper

Instructions

Fry all this stuff in a pan.  Stir with determination.  Garnish generously with pluck.  For best results, spend 3 weeks on a desert island before dinner.

Some photos:

Next stop: Tahiti!