Rainforest Cooking

Preparing food over a naked flame has become a lot more sophisticated in recent years – barbecue devices nowadays come in all shapes and sizes and some of us spend as much on our outdoor garden cooking as we do on our indoor kitchens. 

Anyway, I thought I’d take the opportunity of learning more about authentic primeval cookery from the real experts. And where better to pick up a few tips than Borneo? After all, it wasn’t that long ago that folk on the giant equatorial island were boiling one another for Sunday lunch. 

Things are still a bit primeval when you go way, way, up into the rainforest. Up in the remote hills there are people who know hardly anything about the modern world – either in terms of cooking trends or just about any other fashion, come to that – although a tribal chief I met deep in the rainforest did say goodbye to me with the words: “Would you like my email address?”

I’d met the Tuai Rumah (as the chieftain is called) and his charming ex-head-hunter people in their communal longhouse situated high up the Lemanak River, in the Sarawak province of Northern Borneo – and, after some negotiations with our local guide Henry, the tribe agreed to put on a lunchtime picnic which would show off their rainforest cooking techniques and skills. 

Our first job was to find a shingle bank in a shady and beautiful part of the river – the rainforest in these parts is the genuine article, in that it’s extremely thick and not particularly conducive to picnicking. There are lots of mosquitoes – and snakes – and sometimes both.

What follows is a description of a technique that could be described as “organ-pipe” cookery – and it is something we can copy, to some extent, here in the chilly, mosquito-less, UK. Except for the basic organ-pipe element, that is. Our bamboo doesn’t tend to reach the large fist-sized diameter that it grows to in an equatorial rainforest – but never mind, there are alternatives. 

Having travelled along the river in canoes to reach our shingle island in the shade, the tribal boatmen and women split into two groups. One lot disappeared across the water to climb into the forest where they could be heard chopping this or that with their frightening machetes, while the others set about building a large fire. By fishing out tree limbs that had fallen into the stream, they erected a basic gantry above the flames – the idea being that the long soaked rainforest hardwood would survive the heat without burning.

No, we didn’t cook puppy. But my friend Dinah found one in the rainforest

A few minutes later the others returned with long fat poles of bamboo which they’d cut straight from the jungle – and these were then chopped into two or three foot lengths and washed through.

Banana leaves, which had been brought from the small family gardens around the tribal longhouse, were now brought into the cookery action – they’d been soaking in the river since we arrived and were now being loaded with handfuls of wet, uncooked, sticky rice. With a neat folding action, each was made into a cylindrical parcel and popped, two or three at a time, into a length of bamboo pipe.

With the addition a little water these were then propped upright over the flames – their bases safe outside the fire on the shingle, their tops leaning onto that central hardwood gantry.

This exercise was then repeated with other ingredients for the meal. Beef was chopped and added to copious amounts of fresh minced chillies, garlic, ginger, shallots and white pepper – all gleaned from the local gardens. And they used white pepper by the way – the Iban people grow a lot of this spice and cure both the white and the black peppercorns – but as I’ve learned to do in recent years, they prefer to grind the white rather than the black we are addicted to in Europe.

The resultant mix was rammed into yet more bamboo poles – as was a similar preparation of chicken meat. Lastly various vegetables – including huge green beans and a plant that looked for all the world like young bracken fronds – were given the same treatment.

All these filled bamboo lengths joined the rice until the fire was heating some 30 or 40 green “organ-pipes”. Adjacent to this was a basic wire mesh grill on which some larger pieces of meat were barbecued – including the local favourite, chicken gizzards. 

At this point in the proceedings there was a 15 minute lull which necessitated some speech-making and much toasting (with the Iban’s home-made rice whisky). And finally, the unpacking…

The now charring bamboo pipes were emptied of their loads – steaming and not at all burned on the inside - the sticky rice parcels where unfolded so that white cylinders of the starchy grain could be arranged in a bowl. The meat and veg dishes were simply decanted into yet more bowls – and the whole delicious lot placed was along a central plank taken from the floor of one of the canoes. 

That meal, which we consumed with our fingers on that rather uncomfortable but mosquito-less shingle bank, was one of the best lunches I have ever eaten.

So how have I been emulating jungle cookery techniques at home? Well, I’ll admit that the lack of giant bamboo has taken just a bit of the authenticity away from my efforts – the large bamboo stand I have in my garden produces shoots that are the diameter of a thumb rather than a fist. 

But I have been experimenting with other measures and the first bit of good news is that if you’ve got one of those kettle barbecues with a lid you do not have to find rainforest hardwood that’s been soaking in a river for years. 

The other central requirement, banana leaves, are available on the internet (www.thai-food-online.co.uk or www.easycaribbeanshop.com) – they are a bit pricey, four whole banana leaves can cost as much as £4,99 - but as each leaf is approximately 18 inches x 36 inches in size you can cut them up to make multiple parcels.

The leaves need to be kept fresh so that they remain supple - the best way to store them is by keeping them in an airtight plastic bag in a fridge - and I soak mine for half an hour before use which helps prevent burning. 

We’ve made various parcels of both plain sticky rice and also filled with the beef and chicken mixes mentioned above.

In place of the bamboo pipes I simply stack the parcels into tall-sided Le Crueset style pans – one for the rice and others for whatever flavoured mixes we’re preparing. 

By placing these on a grill as high above the charcoal flames as possible you avoid the danger of having parcels that are burned on one side and raw on the other – although the lid of the kettle barbecue does help deliver an all-round temperature. 

Once the parcels are on the heat you will be eating a meal that will taste amazingly similar to my Borneo lunch within 20 minutes. 

Having now cooked jungle style a couple of times, I will admit I’m still experimenting with whether or not to put the lids on the big iron pans – my preference at the moment is to partly cover the moistened rice parcels so that they steam, but to leave the meat filled banana leaves completely uncovered to so that they take on some of the charcoal’s smoky barbecue tang. 

Anyway, it’s easy. This is genuine primeval cookery. And you don’t need a Sarawakian rainforest in which to do it. Although a little less rain of the cold Atlantic variety would help.