Local Dishes

1. lu'au

   Lu'au (taro leaves baked in coconut cream)

   Usage

   It has two senses: raw taro leaves and cooked taro leaves. It is the same thing as palusami, i.e. taro leaves with coconut cream. It is a fixture of the Sunday umu

   Grammar Note

   Cognate with Hawaiian lūʻau, but where the Hawaiian word names the feast, the Samoan one names the dish

2. fa'alifu talo

   Fa'alifu talo (taro cooked in coconut cream)

   Usage

   Example: "i le fa'alifu talo — taro with coconut cream". Fa'alifu is a dish cooked in coconut cream

3. fa'alifu fa'i

   Fa'alifu fa'i (green bananas cooked in coconut cream)

   Grammar Note

   The same dish is also called "Loifa'i, s. bananas cooked in expressed juice of the cocoa-nut" — an older name that coexists with fa'alifu fa'i

4. oka

   Oka (raw fish marinated in coconut cream)

   Usage

   Cubed fish is dressed with lemon and coconut cream

   Grammar Note

   ⚠ Watch the near-homophones. With a glottal stop, 'oka / 'oka'oka is the interjection "gosh!" (it is always pronounced with a k, even in the T-language). 'Avoka is avocado, loka a lock, soka soccer. Tonga's equivalent dish is 'ota 'ika, a different word

5. pe'epe'e

   Pe'epe'e (coconut cream sauce)

   Usage

   "Pe'epe'e" is coconut cream. Poured over roasted breadfruit it gives the standard dish 'ulu pe'epe'e

6. taufolo

   Taufolo (pounded breadfruit balls)

   Usage

   There are also taufoloniu (made without salt water) and taufolosami (with salt water)

   Grammar Note

   The word is also spelled "tafolo" (breadfruit pudding with coconut sauce). Both spellings circulate

7. masi

   Masi (fermented breadfruit or banana paste)

   Usage

   Fermented breadfruit, or fermented ripe bananas. It is how a surplus harvest is preserved

   Grammar Note

   ⚠ Not the same word as māsima "salt"; the two are treated as doublets, from *masi "product of fermentation" and *maqasin "salt". ⚠ Fijian masi is bark cloth (tapa), not a food; the Samoan word for bark cloth is siapo

8. poi

   Poi (dessert of bananas mashed with coconut cream)

   Usage

   A dessert of bananas mashed with coconut cream. It is served as a sweet at the end of a meal

   Grammar Note

   ⚠ Not the same food as Hawaiian poi (pounded taro paste), though both go back to *poʔoi "pounded starchy food with a sauce". The Samoan dish is made from bananas. Māori poi is a tethered ball, an unrelated thing entirely

9. vaisalo

   Vaisalo (coconut porridge)

   Usage

   A warm porridge of young coconut flesh and coconut cream

10. suafa'i

    Suafa'i (banana porridge)

11. suaesi

    Suaesi (pawpaw porridge)

    Grammar Note

    The word for pawpaw, 'esi, appears as -esi inside the compound.

12. koko alaisa

    Koko alaisa (rice cooked with cocoa)

    Usage

    A sweet porridge eaten at breakfast or supper

13. sapasui

    Sapasui (Samoan chop suey)

    Usage

    Made with vermicelli (lialia), minced meat and soy sauce, it is a standard party platter

    Grammar Note

    A borrowing of English "chop suey". Because every Samoan syllable ends in a vowel, it is reshaped as sa-pa-su-i

14. lialia

    Lialia (vermicelli noodles, the base of sapasui)

    Usage

    "Lialia" is vermicelli, a kind of Asian noodle. It appears in cooking instructions such as "'Oti le lialia." (Cut the vermicelli.)

    Grammar Note

    Glossed "any form of noodle esp. vermicelli used to cook sapasui"; derived from a reduplication of lia'i "to twirl, to whirl"

15. pisupo

    Pisupo (corned beef; by extension any canned food)

    Usage

    It is simmered with taro leaves in coconut cream, or stirred into sapasui or spaghetti. Cans of it are given as gifts at weddings and birthdays

    Grammar Note

    From English "pea soup": the first canned food brought to Samoa in the 19th century, whose name then generalised to all canned food and finally settled on corned beef

16. supoketi

    Supoketi (spaghetti)

    Usage

    Usually the tinned kind in tomato sauce, often mixed with pisupo

17. supo moa

    Supo moa (chicken soup)

    Usage

    "Supo" is "soup" and "moa" is "chicken"

    Grammar Note

    ⚠ There is also "supo n., corned beef (5.7)" — a clipping of pisupo — so bare supo needs context. Moa additionally means the flower at the end of a banana bunch

18. panikeke

    Panikeke (Samoan pancake)

    Usage

    Sold at morning market stalls

19. sikoni

    Sikoni (scone, muffin)

    Usage

    You will meet it in bakeries and at hotel breakfasts

    Grammar Note

    A borrowing of English "scone", reshaped so that the word ends in a vowel as Samoan phonotactics require

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