PNG Cooking 101

Probably the most typical Papua New Guinean meal is sweet potatoes (the Tok Pisin word is 'kaukau' and it's pronounced like 'cow-cow') boiled in coconut milk, often with some cooked greens on top. To make this succulent dish, you first must 'sigarap', or scrape, the coconut, which is what this handy little bench is for. If you look closely on the far end (the end the coconut is sitting on), you'll see a strip of metal sticking out. Break open a coconut, sit on the bench, and use the metal edge to scrape the coconut out into a bowl set below. You can then squeeze the milk out of your scraped coconut, add some water and kaukau, and you're ready to go!