Day/Country #6 -- Ashmore and Cartier Islands/Torres Strait Islands

Ashmore Reef

Ok, so we've discovered a small flaw in our grand plan; the countries list we downloaded also includes external territories belonging to other countries, and today we struck one: the Ashmore and Cartier Islands.  These uninhabited tropical reefs lie in the Timor Sea off the coast of Western Australia, and have belonged to Australia since 1931.  Indonesian fisherman have rights to land their boats there, but no one lives there permanently...probably because all the fresh water supplies are contaminated, often with cholera!

So, what to cook?  Uninhabited islands can't be said to have 'traditional fare' and I didn't want to do Australian or Indonesian (the nearest inhabited landmass) themed dishes as they will come up in due time as countries in their own right.  I toyed with the idea of doing an oceanic hunter-gather themed meal; no doubt it would be fun, but would most likely have to be lacking in truly tropical foods. So instead I've opted to go for a subset of Australian culture and cuisine that originates from islands lying off the tip of north Queensland and having a similar environment to the Ashmore and Cartier Islands--the Torres Strait Islands.

Torres Strait Islander Flag

Fast Facts:

Land Area: 566km²

Population: ~8,089

Capital: Daru

GDP (PPP) per capita: ?

Official Language: Yumplatok

Known For: Successful overturning of 'terra
nullius' legislation to gain native land
rights; threatened by rising sea level.

These islands (~2000km east of Ashmore Reef) are administered partly by Australia, partly by Papua New Guinea, and consist of 14 inhabited islands out of a total of 274 (covering an oceanic area of 48,000km2!).  Torres Strait Islanders are Melanesians and culturally distinct from Aboriginal Australians, so now seemed the perfect opportunity to try some of their traditional recipes--especially since the Torres Strait Islands mysteriously aren't on our list and otherwise might have been missed altogether!

The meal I came up with includes four Torres Strait Islander recipes: numus (fish marinated in onion, lemon, chilli, garlic, soy and white vinegar), sabee sabee vegetables (diced root vegetables and onion boiled in coconut milk), sabee rice (rice cooked in coconut milk) and mini dampers (small crusty bread buns).  I didn't have coconut milk so I just used a can of coconut cream and split it half and half between the pot of vegetables and the pot of rice, then topped both up with water, which seemed to work a treat.

The end result was the easiest meal I've cooked on this expedition so far but that was nevertheless tasty and nutritious.  The damper was overkill and while nice in it's own right, wasn't needed with the other dishes. I was dubious about the numus while I was making it (raw fish twice in two days after all) but it was really nice and Mum and I both went back for seconds. Finally I was particularly impressed at how tender and moist the rice was, without having a particularly strong coconut flavour; I'll be cooking a lot more rice this way in future!

A Torres Strait Islander recipe inspired meal (clockwise from top right):

mini damper, numus, sabee sabee vegetables and sabee rice.

One last thing...I created a monster yesterday when I suggested a cocktail as an after dinner treat.  Today Mum had mixed up a new cocktail before I'd even finished cooking!  She's dubbed it Turtle Crush, seeing as how a lot of Torres Strait Islander recipes include cooking some part of a turtle and my meal obviously did not.  It's made from midori, vodka, pineapple juice, orange juice, lime juice and soda over ice, and while nice, we both agreed we liked yesterday's cocktail better.

Original cocktail -- Turtle Crush

Rating (out of 5):

Numus 4/5

Sabee Sabee Vegetables 3/5 (a bit bland, but it didn't help that I slightly overcooked them)

Sabee Rice 5/5 (perfect if you like moist, tender rice!)

Mini damper 4/5 (lovely damper in it's own right, though didn't really go with and wasn't necessary to accompany the other dishes; sesame seeds on top gave them a nice twist)
Turtle Crush Cocktail 3/5