When porridge doesn't cut the mustard you must try Tou'kutu!
Woke up this morning dreading the breakfast that keeps disappointing me - porridge! Either I am bad at cooking it or the porridge is not made of the stuff that mum cooked so easily and I enjoyed with blue top milk and white sugar! Mine is always lumpy and tastes bland even with a little soy milk and sugar sweetener (yes this is my mum's combo now). But have no fear mum's tou'kutu or coconut bread is here! Made with bananas, self-raising flour, coconut cream, coconut flakes, butter, sugar, milk and tapioca powder (an essential ingredient) this always saves the day! Everything is mixed and evenly spooned into pouches made of aluminium foil and placed in a preheated oven for an hour. My mum tells me this yummy delight was a special treat for her and her sisters growing up in Tonga.
Back in the 1950s, they used the tapioca/manioke root vegetable which was the main ingredient of what they called 'manioke tama' the original name of tou'kutu (my mum is not sure where the newer name came from). They created homemade graters out of aluminium containers and grated up to 100 manioke sometimes and separated the juice from the pulp. The manioke pulp would be mixed with freshly grated coconut pulp and then formed into handfuls and placed in either banana leaves or empty coconut shells ready to be placed in an umu or earth oven. The manioke tama would be washed down with a tea made of orange tree leaves and the fresh coconut milk leftover from the grating fresh coconut. Mum remembers this time like it was yesterday, the big smile on her face after I told her I was sharing the story was priceless!
So, for me, every chance I get to eat something just cooked or baked I drop everything to consume it because that's the best time to eat! So mum's tou'kutu is no different - as long as you have a hot coffee or milo and NZ butter you are set for overwhelming amounts of joy! Nothing like melted butter oozing from a hot baked good...mmmmm....that's it I'm going to put the kettle on now, time to enjoy some tou'kutu...if there's any left!
