First Impressions: Bananas and Breadfruit

My Mama and Daddy used to have the most marvelous vegetable garden.  They worked their butts off - as well as the butts of their children – in maintaining those gardens and harvesting the fruits thereof.  We had corn, several varieties of peas, butterbeans, tomatoes, squash, okra etc.  It takes a lot of work to maintain such a garden, and, as the crops mature, there’s the work of canning and freezing.  On top of that, we maintained a show-piece yard, winning the yard of the month on several occasions.  My Mama, especially, took a great deal of pride in her yards.  They’ve both gone on to their heavenly rewards, and I expect they’re taking a great deal of joy in being in the presence of the Lord and working those heavenly gardens. 

The whole of American Samoa is a garden – both for food and beauty.   There are more coconuts than are humanly possible to consume.  They’re everywhere, and they’re most every one of them volunteer, that is, growing right where the Lord decided the seed should sprout, each producing copious amounts of fruit.  There are papayas and breadfruit growing wild and producing fruits in profusion.  And then there’s taro.  Growing up in South Georgia, we grew taro every year, although I had no idea it was such a principal source of food for so many people in the world.  Nor did my Mama. We just liked the way those “Elephant Ears” – Colocasia esculenta – the big ones, looked in the yard.  Well, here taro grows everywhere in abundance year round.  There are also bananas.  My goodness, you can see banana bunches hanging from trees everywhere.   There are also other fruits readily available.  I watched from my back deck as a lady walked up to what looked like a key lime tree and bent the tree over to collect some of the fruit. 

And, then, there’s the sea.  The principal export of American Samoa is ahi tuna.  But the waters are rich in all kinds of fish, and poke (po-kay: raw fish prepared in a number of ways) and oka (raw fish prepared with coconut milk) are staples, as are, baked, boiled or fried fish.  The short of all that is, with regard to food, the Lord has amply provided the people of the South Pacific.  There it is, now go and get it.  Although, as some families do, with a little effort it is easy to cultivate gardens of rich crops of any of the afore-named fruits and vegetables.  I mean, how hard is it to make sure your “weeds” grow in rows?  Other island staples are pork and chicken. 

With regard to other flora, American Samoa is a tropical island.  Tropical plants flourish here.  No kidding.  What that means is that those same lush “indoor” plants you buy in the garden section of your local Lowes grow to unimaginable sizes here - some to the point of being burdensome weights on host plants.  There is also an unimaginable assortment of breathtaking blooms.   Not cultivated, mind you – just au natural.

Imagine what it was like before western civilization intruded more than 300 years ago.  For that matter, imagine what any tropical island – Figi, Tahiti, Tonga, e.g. – was like 300 years ago – before McDonald’s and Pizza Hut.  All your food is there for the taking – no worries about having to tend the gardens to avoid starvation.  Catfish farms?  Fugetaboutit.  Moreover, the abundance of breathtakingly beautiful plants evokes images of what Eden really is – or was.   My Mama and Daddy were the salt of the earth, hard- working people who were able to succeed at making their opportunities work for them.   I grew up in a family that spent a lot of time and effort in assuring we had food for the year, and that we enjoyed that life in the context of a beautiful garden.  I can only wonder what my Mama and Daddy would have made of their opportunities in this environment.