På drift i Stilla havet

Saturday morning Sue and I went down early to the markets in Apia, beginning with the Fish market. I've been there before, but only later in the morning where most of the fish have been sold. Now the place was stuffed. 

 

 

 Yellowfin and skipjack tuna closest. Big yellowfin tuna slices, then a variety of fish.

I couldn't help but feeling a bit down. Some of the fish were huge, and it felt like an unworthy end to them to appear here. A man carried away a dolphinfish as long as he was tall, and some tunas must have been able to feed a whole village. But at least the fishing is done with better methods here than in the EU, and the fish is definitely fresh and there's no weird labeling as there's been with the European meat... So I bought the smallest possible slice of yellowfin tuna (still huge, probably like 700 g) for 10 tala (equivalent of 28 SEK). Not sure how much it would cost in Sweden, but I'm guessing about ten times more, and it would not have been alive an hour ago. 

 

Another reason to feel down was the species that you could buy that really shouldn't be for sale. Giant clams. Beautiful parrot fish, juvenile moray eels and a lot of tiny reef fish that can't possibly provide much food, and should be left to reproduce and bring income from divers and snorkelers. 

 

 

 

 

 

 
I felt more at home at the fruit and veggie market, and now that the fruit is recovering after the cyclone I can finally indulge in it. I bought some raw cocoa beans, so the evening was spent with experimenting in the kitchen; roasting my own cocoa beans and cooking fresh tuna curry (I am not used to having to remove vertebrae from my ingredients). Everything went well and was delicious however. I used some canned coconut milk for the first time since coming here, but it was made in Samoa and incredibly tasty. I could probably just drink the thing as it is. Such huge difference from the asian cans we buy in Sweden.