In tonight’s final episode for the season, Chef Seeto goes back to a pinnacle time in Fiji’s 19th century history, and visits the chiefly island of Bau. It is the year 1808, and yet another ship is wrecked on the treacherous reefs, but this time its special cargo and crew are to have an enormous impact on the future of Fiji and the rise of the Bau chiefs. Welcome to the season finale of a Taste of Paradise.
The year 1808 has a special place in my culinary repertoire, as it is also the name of my signature restaurant on Castaway Island; a tribute to the arrival of Luis and Saoo, the first Chinese and the story of the ascension of Bau.
The story of the ancient kingdoms embracing Christianity and the significance of the Chinese, inspired me to create a menu that encompasses traditional technique, local produce and the flavours of my own cultural heritage.
In June 1808, the American brig, Eliza, ran aground at Mocea reef, nine miles south of Nairai, the birthplace of the future Tui Viti, Ratu Seru Cakobau. Onboard this ship was the usual rabble of European sailors and beachcombers, but what made it different was $40,000 worth of Spanish silver coins; the Chinese and a kaivalagi named Charlie Savage.
Shipwrecks were common in the 19th century, but the Eliza brought something to the then Bau chief, Ratu Naulivou, that none of his enemies was yet to encounter; musket guns and gunpowder.
Not only did the ship carry the latest weaponary of the white man, it also brought the men who knew how to maintain and use them.
Savage by name and by nature, Charlie’s arrival to Bau Island and his personal thirst for bloody battle, would rival even the most feared Fijian warrior. Had the Eliza not wrecked on the reef, Bau may never have dominated the internecine wars with the kingdoms of Rewa and Verata, and Fiji would have turned out very differently to how we know it today.
Savage and a handful of men, including Luis and Saoo, engraced themselves quickly to Naulivou.
The fact that Savage spoke fluent Tongan allowed him to easily communicate and learn the Fijian language. Naulivou knew exactly the benefit of this white man and his technology to win the tribal wars against his traditional enemies.
The Chinese helped maintain the weapons and ammunition, and more than likely introduced the first taste of Chinese cooking to Bau, as the Chinese spread their cultural foods around the world.
Savage would welcome the chief’s war counsel and “white warrior” just as he done in the Tongan wars years before.
For the next five years, Savage and his men would live the life of kings in the village and take many wives and bear just as many children.
Savage had managed to steal a good portion of the Spanish silver after the wreck, and after tying them into strings of coins, kept them buried opposite Bau Island, somewhere on Viti Levu. But in 1813 his reign of terror and affluence would come to an end.
On the morning of September 6, after rampaging a Wailean village in the Bua, in the northern Vanua Levu islands, Savage and five of his landing party were ambushed at Black Rock by hundreds of Wailean warriors.
Cornered and out of ammunition, Savage, Luis and the others were clubbed, drowned and eaten for their evil deeds. Saoo, who stayed on the ship and did not accompany Savage ashore, supposedly returned to China on the next ship. It would be another two decades before more Chinese would arrive to Fiji.
Of all the locations we have filmed in season three, Bau village had a strongest sense of history, destiny and fear.
As we walked around, you could literally feel the story of the rise of the Kaba people at Bau and why they were so feared. It sent chills down my spine and the hairs on the back of my head stood up many times as Ratu Epenisa Seru Cakobau, the great grandson of Ratu Seru Cakobau’s second marriage, recounted his family’s fearsome history.
The reputation of Bau in the 19th century can still be understood today as we saw the chiefly tomb and learned the story of the heathen temple.
In the early 1970s, the temple was dug up and rebuilt but the timber foundations revealed another dark secret.
People held each beam in place, most probably women, who had sacrificed themselves for the construction of the holy temple centuries earlier.
Another unique piece of history at Bau is the vertical killing stone and ceremonial site.
Standing two feet off the ground, the vertical stone is still bloodstained.
One of the village elders explained that the head of the enemy would be smashed on the stone, and his liver removed and taken to a sacred island of their ancestor, and father of Naulivou, Ratu Tanoa, to be sacrificially eaten. A key feature of Bau village today is also a giant raintree, planted by one of Ratu Seru’s sons, which became a symbolic trophy tree that displayed the fallen enemies for everyone to see.
Just standing under this tree gave me shivers as I imagined the corpses dangling from the branches like Christmas decorations.
The food in tonight’s season finale is Chinese, inspired by the story of the 1808 shipwreck.
The caramelised fish dish should not be missed! Filmed in front of Ratu Epenisa’s home, the fried fish dish uses fermented kora coconut, nama sea grapes and chilli that not only looks spectacular, but tastes incredible.
The contrasting flavours and textures of Fijian-meets-Chinese is quintessential modern Fijian cuisine.
But the final dish in this episode is not one of my making, but of the Bau women who prepared the poisonous puffer fish, sumusumu for me to try for the first time.
I’ve never been so reluctant to sample a local dish, as if not prepared correctly, will poison and kill a person quickly by shutting down their nervous system. As I sat down with Ratu Epenisa, he could see my nervousness to sample one of the Kaba people’s culinary delicacies.
“Don’t worry Chef, it’s safe to eat. I’ll go first!” he reassured me.
“Besides, if we both die, we’ll do it together and I’ll reserve you a space next to me and my great grandfather”. Ratu chef. Pass me the sumusumu, kerekere!”
* Watch the final episode of Taste of Paradise tonight at 7.30pm, and repeats of previous episodes at Sunday 4pm, only on Fiji One.
