Papua Penuh Damai (PAPEDA)

That's the slogan on one of my favourite Papua tshirts (I bought if for Martin last year when he was away)... As my last pre-Christmas post, I wanted to share with you its origins:

Papeda is the traditional staple food (read glue) in Papua.  It comes from the sago palm.

Indonesia is FULL of acronyms and 'singkatan' (putting parts of words together to create new words)... So they expand Papeda to Papua Penuh Damai (which literally translates to Papua full of Peace).  I like it.

Anyway, I started this post to share a little more about Papeda itself.  We have had it a few times aboard the ship... when you buy it in the village, it comes neatly packed in bamboo and banana leaves like this:

Then our cook works his magic, and we eat it with the yummy yellow fish curry...  The fish is not yellow, the curry is... the fish is usually snapper (called 'red fish' here!).