You know, the Japanese do not eat sushi or tempura routinely. Those dishes are reserved for special occasions.
Japanese guest, at my brother-in-law’s Thanksgiving party.
The Chamorros have a few dishes that are signatures, and as my family encountered them a number of times during the Thanksgiving holidays, I thought it appropriate to introduce these dishes in context. In almost all cases where we were served food, the centerpiece of the meal, the first thing on the table was a finadene sauce. I’ve spoken of finadene before. It’s a sauce based on soy sauce, lemon juice (or vinegar), scallions, and boonie peppers. Finadene is a ubiquitous flavoring component in the Marianas, found even in the local Kentucky Fried Chickens. In the absence of boonies, my wife has had good luck with Thai (bird) peppers. But Thais can be 50,000-100,000 Scoville units in heat, while Professor Marutani of the University of Guam has shown me quotes that place the heat of the boonies in roughly the same range as jalapeno peppers, or about 4000 Scoville units. To note, my wife usually freezes her Thai peppers first.
Kelaguen is a Micronesean version of ceviche. However, instead of being applied largely to fish, the most common forms of kelaguen are chicken kelaguen (recipes here and here) and beef kelaguen(recipes here and here). This is not a staple, but a side dish and used for special occasions.
Red rice is a staple Chamorro dish, and the rice is colored with the red pigment of the achiote bean. The blog Scent of Green Bananas has an excellent article on Chamorro red rice. The bean imparts a subtly different flavor to the rice, which I can only describe as “duskier” or “darker”. This kind of red rice is not the same as Japanese red rice, which is sweeter and more a dessert. Achiote (or achote) can usually be purchased at places with a strong Hispanic influence, such as Atlanta’s international markets.
A Micronesian cultural resource I’ve recently encountered is the Guampedia. They have placed online dozens of recipes. Among other things, more exotic forms of kelaguen (venison, yellowfin) are presented among the recipes.
January 19, 2010 at 2:08 pm
Hafa Adai! It’s nice to know there’s another Gwinnett family that enjoys kelaguen, red rice and finadene! We actually brought back some boonie peppers and were able to successfully grow quite a few plants.
June 20, 2010 at 2:46 pm
Can you hook me up with some boonie peppers? I like to put them in my finadenne.
June 20, 2010 at 2:45 pm
Hello, I’m from Guam and now living in
Woodstock, GA. I was interested in your boonie peppers. I want to grow some for myself. Those are champion for putting in finadenne. Let me know if you can help me out please. My name is George Catalon and my email is george_catalon@hotmail.com. Thanks.
June 20, 2010 at 3:38 pm
I talk extensively about how to grow boonie peppers on this blog. I’d suggest reading the pertinent articles found here.
To get boonie peppers for dishes, you might talk to the Pepper Pilot.
The ebay seller floralys (from Yigo) deals in seeds. The current auction is this one.
January 29, 2011 at 9:10 am
[…] Chamorro Themes at Thanksgiving […]
November 24, 2014 at 6:07 am
Wow what a collection ……. thank you guys