Earth Oven Feast · Umu
Umu
📷 Closely related photo — Photo: JIRCAS Library / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY 2.0
The whole "oven" is just a pile of stones heated by a wood fire, sealed with nothing but banana leaves to trap the heat and smoke flavor.
Taro, breadfruit, fish, and pork are wrapped in banana or breadfruit leaves and laid over volcanic stones heated by a wood fire on the ground, then covered with more leaves and left to slow-cook for one to two hours.
Why it's made this way: The umu is Samoa's traditional earth oven, and on the more rural island of Savai'i it remains a routine way to cook family meals rather than an occasional special-event method, as it more often is in urban Apia.
Roughly what's in it
520kcal
28gprotein
40gcarbs
26gfat
Estimated per typical street-vendor portion — not lab-tested.
More from Samoa
Part of World of Street Food — 3443 dishes from 118 countries.
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Photo credits.