Cooking

Types of Traditional Cooking

A bona wudu aira nigir. 

Ismael K. Isikel Edited 2/10/2017

Some traditional types of cooking practiced by the Tolai are described in this post. These are tunutun, kukulubai, nigir, pinapara, and pipitai. It is more on the vocabulary and not the recipe.

1. Tunutun
A simple type of cooking is roasting or grilling food such as taro, banana, and kaukau on an open fire (iap). The food item  (magit na nian) is placed on the fire and from time to time it is turned and brushed or scratched with a sharp implement until it is cooked and ready to be eaten.

Depending on the situation, tunutun is used as adjective as well as a noun. Tunutun comes from the word tun that means grill or roast food, especially tubers, banana, or meat. Tututun  is the present continuous tense of tun.



2. Kukulubai

Prepared food is carefully wrapped in leaves and placed in a heated ground oven or an open fire. Many times preparation of food for this type of cooking include the use of milk extracted from grated coconut. Leaves for wrapping includes palm and banana leaves. Other leaves, such as mapina bubu are also used because they serve to flavor the food at the same time. Kulube is the verb form of kukulubai.

3. Nigir

A common type of cooking is nigir and it is now popular around many parts of Papua New Guinea among both Tolai and non-Tolai. Food prepared and cooked using this method is popularly known as aigir. Heated stones are used in this method of cooking.
        
4. Pinapara

Pinapara is done using a ground oven known as ubu. The prepared food is wrapped in banana leaves, placed inside the oven, and the oven is covered trapping the heat. Kuanua dialect varies and pinapara is also known as parapara. Pare is the verb of pinapara. Preparation of food as well as the final product - cooked food- is called punupur. Punupur is the act of squeezing coconut milk on to the prepared food before it is wrapped and placed in the ground oven. Pur is the verb of punupur. A small piece of table cloth size material is used to wrap the grated coconut and squeezed to extract the milk.The piece of material is known as pupupur.

A favorite item used in cooking is the lama.

        
5. Pipitai is the process of making ku. Similar to nigir and pinapara, pipitai is the process of making ku using heated stones to heat coconut milk. The processed ku is used as garnish; spread over other cooked food, such as taro and banana, and eaten.