As a developing country, Papua New Guinea has its share of social problems. But here, no one ever goes hungry.

The soil of its Highlands is dazzlingly fertile and just about every family owns land for growing food.

Every home has at the very least a sweet potato and cabbage plantation, some pigs and several fruit trees, like banana, orange, mandarin, and guava.

You can spot a sweet potato crop, with their distinctive mounds dotted with purple leaves, from far away. These little bumps of earth are packed with weeds and other yard waste that release precious nutrients as they decompose under the topsoil.

A handful of laulau

Larger gardens diversify with potatoes, peas, onions, broccoli, cauliflower, cucumbers, and leafy greens. A few will grow tomatoes, peanuts, taro, ginger, and sugar cane.

Other local fruits include pineapples, papaya, avocados, strawberries, and sugar fruit (a sweeter version of passion fruit).

Unique fruits of the region are the laulau, a small bell-shaped berry that is crispy and watery with a very mild watermelon flavour. The white panda nut is the size of a basketball, thorny on the outside, and filled with a woody pulp that has only a hint nuttiness.

Its cousin, the red panda nut, looks like a giant mutant red corn and when steamed releases a red salty paste that vaguely resembles bamboo shoots in flavour.

A market seller with a red panda nut

Food preparation

If PNG cuisine can boast of any virtue, it’s simplicity. Food is either boiled, fried, or roasted on a fire.

PNGers don’t concern themselves with blending ingredients in interesting ways, preferring to prepare each ingredient on its own. Sometimes a chicken will be cooked with ginger and green onions, but this is a rarity. Spices are nowhere to be seen in any outdoor market.

The most basic food is the fire-roasted sweet potato. The tubers are tossed in hot embers, then peeled by hand. Another favourite is the salty banana, a cousin of the plantain, which is boiled until somewhat tender. It is dense, starchy, and quite flavourless.

Enjoying sugar cane as a sweet snack

PNGers have a soft spot for canned meats, and indeed, the diversity of the canned meat aisle of any supermarket rivals breakfast cereals in North America. I never imagined there were five brands of corned luncheon pork to choose from.

One memorable delicacy – if it can be called that – is fried lamb flaps. As the name suggests, it’s hardly the finest cut of the animal. It resembles bacon with thin layers of meat and fat. But it’s delicious, crispy, and leaves your face completely lubricated.

Street food is depressingly bland, reminding visitors that PNG was colonized by the British. You can find grilled beef sausages whose flavour and texture make you think of unspeakable offals. A popular snack is bread flour: a deep-fried ball of dough with a bread centre.

Making orange juice

How they eat

PNG is westernizing at an alarming rate, but some ancient habits remain strong. Even if a house has a dining table and good cutlery, you’ll usually find families sitting on the kitchen floor eating with their hands, as it is done in the most rustic village hut.

Except for dinner, Highlanders don’t eat square meals, but nibble throughout the day. The evening meal is the most important, and the most bountiful. Family members are given large bowls full of the day’s harvest.

And if someone doesn’t finish their plate, another one will show no aversion to picking the meat from a half-eaten chicken breast. Any leftovers are gladly eaten the next morning.

One time of breakfast, we were given a bowl with rice, instant noodles, and canned tuna. It’s what they had in the house, and this should be good enough for anybody.