Traditional Cooking in Fiji

A lovo is an underground barbecue in which an entire feast is cooked over hot rocks while buried in earth.

Watching the preparation of a lovo is almost as much fun as the eating which eventually follows.

The first step in preparing a lovo is heating the rocks which will serve as the base for the lovo.

Specially selected stones are placed in a hot fire and left to absorb the heat. When the rocks are sufficiently heated, they are pulled from the flames and placed in the bottom of a shallow pit.

Next, chicken, fish and sometimes pork are tightly wrapped in a weave of palm fronds or banana leaves before being place in the bottom of the lovo pit lined with hot rocks.

On top goes various root crops including dalo (the potatolike root of the taro plant), cassava (the root of the tapioca plant) and Uvi (wild yam).

Once the steaming pit is filled with food, the entire hole is filled with earth and left to 'cook' for anywhere from two to three hours depending on the amount of food.

Unearthing the lava is done with great celebration and the foods which emerge are unwrapped and placed on large banana leaves to cool before the meal begins.

And what a meal it is.