The Second World War was a global war that took place between 1939 to 1945. During this time, the Pacific Campaign took off in ways to remove Imperialist Japan's powers over territories in Micronesia and eventually remove their economic capacity.
Propaganda was widespread and places such as the Northern Mariana Islands had Japanese women throwing their children over cliffs and jumping to their deaths in fear of American infiltration. These were trying times for the colonial powers and the indigenous minority.
At this time, my grandmother was 12 years old, and recounted how she, along with her mother, and 4 siblings, survived off the land during the continuous bombardment that lasted for weeks before the arrival of American forces.
She used to say that the most filling meal she had ever had was this recipe, and nothing could ever beat it.
Savory Coconut Porridge
My grandmother grabbed an old iron pan from the outside kitchen and told me to gather twigs of wood and some dried coconut fiber. She said the small fire was enough to keep the pan heated and small enough to avoid detection.
She fired this up right outside the corner of our garage, as if we lived inside a cave, with just enough airflow.
She had a handful of pepper leaves, much like what they use in Thai cooking, and she heated them up until they blistered with the heat. She then added ground coconut and juice from a younger coconut.
She added enough coconut meat to mimic what I would call a thick porridge, and then she cried into the food.
She literally cried into the pan.
When I asked her why, she said that it was too dangerous to take a trip to the beach to boil water to make salt. She said that amphibious landings were taking place, and it was just too dangerous to be seen, or be mistaken as a Japanese ally.
So she she cried and used her tears for flavor.
She motioned to me to come closer.
I took a bite of the coconut porridge, and like my grandmother, nothing has ever satisfied my hunger like this recipe.