Food: Bamboo, Bats & Innards? - Blast from the Past by Diana McCollum

   (First published in 2015) 

 I spent around three years on the island of Guam. I finished up high school at Tumon High, which was renamed J.F. Kennedy High, after President Kennedy’s assassination. Our high school was not on a military base. I went to school with not only kids from Guam, but kids from all over Micronesia.

Photo by Tagstock Japan This is a picture of Tumon beach. When I lived on Guam there weren't any hotels on Tumon beach. This was a favorite hangout for families and high school kids. Now it is the Honey moon capital for Japan. 

     I was accepted by the students because I lived, and went to school in their community. Weekends I’d go with my friends to fiestas. Every town had a patron saint. The fiestas were to honor and celebrate their saint. We would wander from house to house and enjoy the culinary delights offered in the front yards, under market tents, listen to music and have a good time. Barbeques and fire pits would send waves of smoke into the air along with the mouthwatering smells of roasting pig, fowl and barbeque beef.

     Some of the main cooking ingredients were: Bamboo, coconut, breadfruit (not to be confused with fruit bats, also a staple), plantains, yams, native eggplant and papaya.

     The most unusual food I tried was a small 2 to 3 inch dried fish. I think it was called “Eee, eee”. The whole fish is salted and dried and you pop the whole thing in your mouth to eat, that’s right, eye balls and all. Very salty, but good.

     Red rice is another staple. The rice gets it’s coloring from the achote seed which was introduce by the Spaniards to the Chamorro people hundreds of years ago.

Picture by  Paul Kennedy

     A not so favorite of mine is Fritada made with pig, cow, chicken or deer. Ingredients include: onion, salt & pepper, blood, garlic, small and large intestine, heart, liver and pancreas. Nothing wasted!

     Fanihe-better known as fruit bat only takes a pot to boil it in, half an onion, and one cup of coconut milk.

     My favorite? Kelaguin Uhang (shrimp coconut salad.) I’ll share the recipe with you in a moment.

     I left Guam for the final time to get married and live in Michigan. My first Christmas as a married woman, I told my Mom I wanted a cookbook with recipes of Guamanian food. Hence, I still have these recipes.

Favorite food: Kelaguin Uhang (Shrimp coconut salad)

1 ½ cups small shrimp cooked

1 medium coconut (I use a bag of coconut)

1 lemon

1 small onion

1 sweet green pepper

1 red hot pepper or ¼ tsp. Tabasco sauce

Broil green pepper over an open fire (or in oven J) Peel, take out seeds. Chop pepper and onions and put them together in a bowl with red hot pepper or Tabasco sauce. Squeeze in the juice of one lemon and mash up the mixture. Put in the shrimp and the grated coconut.  Mix all ingredients and season to taste-with more salt, lemon juice and Tabasco sauce.

    

What was your favorite food in high school? What was the strangest food you have ever eaten?