Palusami

Palusami is a popular dish at family feasts in many parts of Polynesia; especially in Samoa, Fiji. The dish is made with corned beef or mutton, onion, garlic, salt, pepper, and coconut cream, wrapped in big taro leaves, then put in an underground oven called a lovo. The dish in Hawaii, it’s called laulau. In Fiji and Samoa, it’s called palusami

Today, most people are using ovens instead of lovos, and this recipe is no exception.  Earlier the Polynesians developed an ingenious way of cooking in an underground earth oven known as an umu, ahimaa, or lovo.

An earth oven, ground oven or cooking pit is one of the simplest and most ancient cooking structures. At its most basic, an earth oven is a pit in the ground used to trap heat and bake, smoke, or steam food.

Many Polynesian communities still use cooking pits for ceremonial or celebratory occasions, including the indigenous Fijian lovo, the Hawaiian imu, the Māori hāngi, the Mexican barbacoa.