Groceries

Last week Lori gave you her Top Ten list of things she misses in PNG. If I were to give you my list, almost every entry would be some type of food. Like I've always said - I love Lori first and food second, but it's a close race. I was spoiled in Cairns because I could find everything I wanted, but it's different story in Port Moresby. I thought I would give you a glimpse into a trip to the grocery store here.

Tomatoes are by far my favourite food. I eat a tomato of some sort every day - in a salad or a sauce or just whole with a little salt and pepper, but that has been tough to do in PNG. There isn't a big market for tomatoes because Papua New Guineans don't eat them, but they do grow them for the ex-pats. This is the best tomato that I've seen in 2 weeks.

Because the island is so mountainous, it's hard to find land flat enough to have any sort of large scale agriculture. Most of the vegetables are grown in small garden plots cut into the hillsides, but then the vendors have to get them to the grocery stores and reliable transportation can be an issue. Green leafy vegetables are the hardest to come by. I haven't seen any spinach since I've been here. You can get hydroponic lettuce from the greenhouses in Sogeri though, but you have to be at the store on the right day at the right time to get it fresh and it's never there at the same time. Usually the lettuce is pretty wilted by the time I get there.

Luckily the Zucchini is usually good. Every time I turn on the BBQ, I always throw some on the grill.

The other green vegetable that is usually okay is cabbage (after you peel off the outer leaves). I'm not a huge cabbage fan so I've had to get creative and use it in soups and Asian coleslaw.

Potatoes are hit and miss. These are the best potatoes that I've seen since I came back from Australia and they're still not that great.

The bread is pretty good I must say. They bake it fresh in the store everyday. The loaves are larger than we're used, so it makes bigger sandwiches.

Milk is imported from Australia and it's good, but because it's imported, getting it with a long expiry date is tough. We don't select the milk by type, we just look for the one with the date furthest away. Full fat, skim, whatever; it doesn't matter. We got lucky this week, I bought this on July 13 and it's good until the 19th.

We can't always get fresh milk so we make sure that we have a carton of UHT milk in the cupboard just in case. Anyone who's spent time in the Navy is familiar with UHT milk. It's milk that has been pasteurized at an Ultra High Temperature (hence UHT) and can be stored at room temperature for months. It's regular milk, but it doesn't have much taste anymore. Perfectly fine for tea or coffee but, it's not something you want to drink with a chocolate chip cookie.

One thing that you can always get at the grocery store is canned goods.

Canned fish, like tuna and mackerel, is plentiful.

As is corned beef.

A lot of people live in places without refrigeration, so canned and dry items are very popular. One of the community affairs guys that works with Lori, always has plenty of crackers and tuna in his vehicle to bring to meetings in the villages.

I'm so happy that I'll be in southern Ontario this summer because I'm craving asparagus, spinach, and corn on the cob. Usually I'm talking about bacon when I'm going home, but we have that covered here. It's the fresh stuff that I'm looking forward to this time.

Things are getting better though. A brand new grocery store has just opened up around the corner from us and so far they are doing a better job at getting in fresh veggies.

We are getting new restaurants as well. A new office complex opened on the downtown harbour front and 4 new restaurants are going in - Indian, Asian, Seafood, and a Sports Bar.

A very nice coffee shop called Duffy's has already opened.

We had a couple of lattes and a salted caramel brownie today.

PNG is entering the 21st century, but unfortunately a large portion of the population can't afford to eat in places like this. Hopefully in the coming years the unemployment rate will continue to drop and the money coming into the country from the mining and natural gas projects will make it to the people.

db