Dinner Buried at Dawn

Near a small lake ringed with steam, Polly found a row of large pots standing beside deep holes cut into the bare, blackened ground. A cook in a heavy apron worked down the line, lowering a sealed pot into each hole with a rope, and Polly settled on a nearby rail to watch, curious what could possibly be worth cooking in a hole in the ground.

Karibu na ziwa dogo lililozungukwa na mvuke, Polly alikuta safu ya vyungu vikubwa vilivyosimama kando ya mashimo ya kina yaliyochimbwa katika ardhi tupu na nyeusi. Mpishi aliyevaa aproni nzito alifanya kazi safu nzima, akishusha chungu kilichofungwa ndani ya kila shimo kwa kamba, na Polly akatua juu ya reli iliyo karibu ili kutazama, akishangaa ni nini kingeweza kustahili kupikwa ndani ya shimo ardhini.

Each pot held layers of meat, sausage, cabbage, and root vegetables, sealed tight and lowered into earth heated from below to roughly the temperature of boiling water. No flame touches any of it. The heat comes entirely from the volcano beneath the whole valley, rising up through cracks that were dug out and marked with stone rings generations ago, long before anyone measured the temperature scientifically.

Kila chungu kilikuwa na tabaka za nyama, soseji, kabichi na mizizi, kimefungwa vizuri na kushushwa ndani ya ardhi inayopashwa moto kutoka chini hadi karibu joto la maji yanayochemka. Hakuna moto unaogusa chochote. Joto lote linatoka kwa volkano iliyo chini ya bonde zima, likipanda kupitia nyufa zilizochimbuliwa na kuwekewa alama za pete za mawe vizazi vingi vilivyopita, muda mrefu kabla mtu yeyote hajapima joto kisayansi.

The cook explained, more with gestures than words, that the pots go in early and stay buried for six or seven hours while everyone goes off to visit the lake, the gardens, or the town, coming back only when it is time to dig dinner up again. It is, he seemed to say, the easiest meal on the island to start and by far the strangest kitchen to cook it in.

Mpishi alieleza, zaidi kwa ishara kuliko maneno, kwamba vyungu huingia mapema na hubaki vimezikwa kwa masaa sita au saba wakati kila mtu anaenda kutembelea ziwa, bustani au mji, akirudi tu wakati wa kuchimbua chakula cha jioni. Ilionekana anasema kuwa hiki ndicho chakula rahisi zaidi kuanzisha kisiwani, na jiko la ajabu kuliko yote kupikia.

When the first pot came up, steam poured out of it in a thick cloud, and the smell of slow-cooked meat and cabbage drifted across the whole clearing. Polly did not stay for the meal itself, but she watched the cook carry it away proudly, as if he, and not the mountain, had done all the work.

Chungu cha kwanza kilipopanda, mvuke ulimwagika kutoka ndani kama wingu zito, na harufu ya nyama iliyopikwa polepole na kabichi ikaenea uwanja mzima. Polly hakubaki kwa mlo wenyewe, lakini alimtazama mpishi akikibeba kwa fahari, kana kwamba yeye, na si mlima, ndiye aliyefanya kazi yote.