Fiji: Food and the National Dish

Two culinary traditions on one set of islands

Fijian food reflects the country's dual heritage as clearly as anywhere in the Pacific: an indigenous Fijian tradition built on fish, root vegetables, coconut and communal feasting, alongside a substantial Indo-Fijian tradition brought by indentured labourers who arrived from India from 1879 to 1916 to work Fiji's sugar plantations. Both remain genuinely everyday food rather than one displacing the other.

The national dish: kokoda

Kokoda, raw fish marinated in lemon or lime juice, then mixed with coconut milk, diced tomato and chilli, is Fiji's best-known dish internationally and its closest equivalent to a national dish. The fish "cooks" through the acid in the citrus much as in Latin American ceviche, and the finished dish is a genuine showcase of Fiji's fish and coconut pantry in one plate.

The pantry: fish, coconut and root vegetables

Fish, coconut in every form, and root vegetables — cassava, dalo (taro) and sweet potato — form the base of indigenous Fijian cooking, while rice, lentils, and a full range of Indian spices anchor the Indo-Fijian side of the table. Rourou, taro leaves cooked down in coconut cream, and duruka, the edible young flower head of a wild cane sometimes called Fijian asparagus, are both distinctly local ingredients that show up across many dishes.

The lovo: an underground feast

Lovo, an earth oven in which meat, fish and root vegetables wrapped in banana or taro leaves are cooked for hours over heated stones buried in the ground, is Fiji's traditional way of feeding a large gathering and remains central to feasts, celebrations and village life; it takes many people to prepare. The smoky, slow-cooked results, unwrapped together at the end, are as much a communal event as a cooking method.

Dishes to know

Five more to recognise across Fiji:

• Lovo-cooked pork or chicken — meat cooked for hours in an underground

earth oven, wrapped in leaves.

• Rourou — a stew of taro leaves, close kin to palusami, the taro-leaf

parcels filled with coconut cream and often canned meat or fish.

• Duruka — the unopened flower head of a wild cane, eaten roasted or

steamed in season as different varieties ripen.

• Roti and curry — everyday Indo-Fijian food, reflecting the descendants

of 19th-century Indian indentured labourers who remain a large share of Fiji's population.

• Cassava and dalo — boiled or roasted root vegetables, the starchy base

of most indigenous Fijian meals; cassava is now Fiji's most widely grown staple.

Kava and the ceremony behind it

Eating as a traveller

Vegetarians eat well thanks to Fiji's strong Indo-Fijian vegetarian cooking, alongside root vegetables and coconut-based dishes on the indigenous Fijian side. If offered kava, clapping once, taking the cup and drinking it in a single draught is the customary way to receive it, a small gesture of respect that goes a long way.

What to take from the table

Kokoda, fresh and bright with citrus and coconut, is the dish to try first, but a genuine lovo feast, unwrapped from its underground oven at the end of a long slow cook, best shows how central communal food remains to Fijian life.