Marshall Islands

One of the biggest challenges of our WorldEats journey (other than finding the time to explore!) has been trying to figure out where to go for countries that have little to no restaurant presence outside their own country. It is sometimes difficult to find restaurants or shops that specialize in the cuisines of the world's tiniest nations, places with which we're not very familiar and want to learn more about their food. I do a lot of research trying to find as many options as possible, but sometimes there just isn't much there.

Giant tuna steaks

The Marshall Islands (like much of Oceania) is a prime example of a cuisine that's nearly impossible to find here in the States. From the internet, I learned a few things:

1. The cuisine of the Marshall Islands largely focuses on fish and a few land crops like breadfruit. (From an official source!)

2. The largest concentration of Marshallese people in the States is in Arkansas. (Not where I would have expected at all. I would have guessed Hawaii or California, based purely on geographic proximity.) The reasons do make sense if you read up on it. This article was fascinating.

Although I increased my knowledge about the Marshall Islands, I didn't find anywhere to get Marshallese food.

Tuna from the Marshall Islands

So we took a slight detour from our WorldEats journey through the Caribbean to check the Marshall Islands off our list when we had the opportunity to do so. A friend of ours had some giant blocks of tuna that were flash frozen at sea in the Marshall Islands and flown into the US (long story). Short of going to Majuro (which would be an interesting adventure but wouldn't qualify it for WorldEats anyway) or becoming friends with someone in Arkansas's Marshallese community (very unlikely), this was probably the closest we were ever going to get to Marshallese food.

Gorgeously seared tuna

We had a great dinner of seared tuna steaks (in an Asian flavored marinade with a miso glaze) along with some (non-Marshallese) side salads. The tuna was so fresh and those pieces were gigantic. Tuna of that quality and size would probably cost a fortune to buy at the store. Look at how gorgeous that tuna is!

We also snacked on some breadfruit crisps that came from the Marshall Islands. Those had a really interesting flavor and texture that is hard to describe. I'm not sure we've had anything like it before. A thought they were like a less dense plantain chip. They weren't sweet, but they had a nice crispness to them.

Breadfruit crisps

I'll keep looking for Marshallese cuisine, especially when we get to the Oceania part of our journey (whenever that may be), but we're thinking that this will probably end up being our only Marshall Islands visit for WorldEats. After all, we got both the fish and the starch that are big parts of their cuisine, and the food came from there. That's probably as close as we're going to get!