Vanuatu (part 3) - "What in the World is Laplap?"

Luganville, Santo, Vanuatu

When I got home from my mission I started school at BYU.  I had to make a "How to..." powerpoint presentation for an assignment.  The powerpoint had to include a voice recording.  I decided to make a powerpoint about how to make laplap (pronounced lop-lop).  I was sitting in a computer lab on campus working on my project when I had to make the voice recording for my introduction. I felt awkward talking in the middle of the quiet lab.  So I leaned forward and quietly said "What in the world is laplap?" into the microphone.  It wasn't loud enough, so I tried it again.  "What in the world is laplap?"  This time I stuttered a bit, so I had to start again.  And so it went until I was on the fifth or sixth time of attempting to record it when the guy sitting next to me tapped my shoulder and said, "What in the world IS laplap?!"

For the one or two other people in the world that don't know what laplap is... this post is for you!

In Vanuatu, laplap is perhaps the cultural equivalent of roast and potatoes.  It takes several hours to make, so it is made for special occasions or when company is over.  When I first got to Vanuatu I had a hard time getting it down.  The consistency is like cream of wheat that doesn't have quite enough water and has cooled off so you could cut it into pieces and hold it in your hand to eat.  It was soft and kind of sticky, thick and heavy.  (I'm not selling this very well, am I?)  After being out for a while, however, I came to looove a hot piece of laplap that had just come off the hot stones.  Especially when it had some ave ave or coconut cream to dip it in.  Mmmm mmmm.

Matt is a cook.  A good cook.  And a clever cook.  He seldom uses a recipe.  Usually he just looks in the refrigerator and pantry and pulls something together.  So was I surprised when I came home from work one day and he told me he had some laplap in the oven for dinner??  Yes, yes I was.  He'd heard me talk about it and wanted to try it out.  He looked it up on the internet, watched some youtube videos, and jumped in.  This is what he came up with.

His effort was so sweet and it was fun to share with the kids.  The only downside was that it didn't quite work (although it was the closest thing I've had away from Vanuatu).  When we went to Vanuatu, one of the things we wanted to do was help make some laplap. I talked with Mama Mavutu and asked if we could make laplap with her.  She was more than happy to do so.  Her daughter Ruth, suggested that we do it at her home.

After church on Sunday 4 September, Matt and I went to Ruth and Patrick Ishmael's home to help prepare the lap lap that we would be eating later that day.  I had known Ruth and Patrick when I was serving my mission.  They were both in the mutual program and great examples of what a young woman and young man should be.  Ruth eventually served a mission in Idaho (bless her heart and her frost bitten toes), and Patrick served in Australia.  They were married in the Fiji temple (a feat in and of itself).  They have a little boy named Michael who had just turned two and whose birthday we were celebrating that night.  Patrick is the branch president of the Santo Branch.

Anyway, lets get on with the cooking lesson.  First, you need to decide what type of laplap you will be serving.  Ruth thought it would be fun to make two kinds, since who knows when we'll be enjoying laplap again.  We had laplap maniok and laplap yam.  The first step is to peel the maniok (known as cassava in other parts of the world) and yam.  Matt took on the yam like a man!!

Next, the maniok and yam needed to be "scratched" (as we say in Bislama), or grated (as we say in English).  Take a piece of metal and using a nail, hammer dozens of holes into the metal.  Then flip the metal over, attach it to a wooden frame and voila, you have a laplap scratcher.  It basically grinds the yam/maniok into mush.  Here Mama Mavutu and I are making maniok mush.

Ruth was busy making mush with the yam. 

Meanwhile, the fire needs to be started to heat the stones for the ground oven.  The husk of the coconut is used to get things going, but then a little frame of wood is added on top of the fire to support a pile of stones.  The stones are what will cook the laplap, so they need to be smokin' hot.

Once the maniok and yam have been scratched we get started on the coconuts which need to be milked for the laplap.  I'm poised, ready to strike the unsuspecting coconut right between the eyes.  It was a pretty good whack, if I do say so myself.

Because it was Sunday and we didn't want to spend the entire day cooking, Mama Mavutu scratched the coconut.  As you can see, she did a thorough job.  The fibrous stems to the side of the coconut shell (in the picture below) are cut from the large leaves and will later be used to tie up the laplap.

Matt and Ruth began preparing the green onions, chicken wings, island cabbage, soy sauce, salt, and a little MSG that would top it all off.

There are specific leaves that are grown in Vanuatu that are called "laplap leaves" (clever name), however there were none available at the market on Saturday.  So banana leaves are an alternative (they look very similar).  Mama Mavutu is laying out the leaves in preparation for the yam and maniok mush to be poured on.

Now she is milking the scratched coconut onto the leaves - the equivalent of spraying PAM on your cake pan so it won't stick .

 Now the yam (brown) and the maniok (white) are poured onto the leaves.

Ruth married Patrick, who is from the island of Malakula, so we had Malakula-style laplap .  That means island cabbage is put in the middle, then two hot stones are placed on top (you'll see the steam from the stones in the video), put the chicken wings all around the hot stones, sprinkle the green onions, salt, and some MSG for good measure.  Then, you wrap it all up in the leaves, tying it together with the bone (stem) of the leaves.

Once it is wrapped up all pretty, it is taken down to the hot stones.  By this point the fire would have died down and most of the stones would be moved to the side of a small pit.  The pit is lined with stones, the leaf bundle placed on them, and then the other stones put on top.  They use a piece of bamboo folded in half like huge prongs to move the hot stones.

Then you pile all sorts of other things (more banana leaves, gunny sacks, corrugated tin, dirt, whatever...) on top of the stones to trap in the heat. About 2 hours later you uncover the happy little bundle.

Here it is all uncovered.

It's actually quite heavy, being made with 4-5 yams, 6-8 maniok, chicken wings, two stones, and the other additions for flavor.  It's hot and ready to be unwrapped and eaten.

Laplap is eaten while sitting on a mat, with everyone around it in a circle.  First it is unwrapped, then the chicken and island cabbage are taken out of the middle and spread around the laplap.  More coconut milk is added to the top.   

The two stones are removed (you can see them on the top left side) and coconut milk is put in the two holes they left.  The laplap is cut around the edges and those pieces are eaten first before cutting further into the laplap.  From start to finish, it took about 5 hours to make.  Here is what was left over.

What is almost impossible to captured is the chatting and laughter that went along with the preparation as well as the conversation and company that accompanied the evening.

And that, my friends, is laplap.