Local Dishes

1. demok

   Demok (young taro leaves boiled in coconut milk)

   Usage

   Soup made by boiling young taro leaves with coconut milk. The Palauan dish whose name comes up most often, made from the leaves rather than the taro tuber (kukau). The example Te menga a demok. carries a note that people from Ngerard and Ngiual often eat taro-leaf soup, so it reads as a northern-state dish. The same word also has a stative sense "cowardly", so use it in a food context

2. chelang

   Chelang (boiled taro stems sweetened with coconut milk and sugar)

   Usage

   A dessert made by adding coconut milk (disech) and sugar to boiled taro stems. It uses the stems (chelechedal a dait), not the tuber itself, and is one of the kliou (sweet dishes served to guests).

3. chelbakl

   Chelbakl (sweetened crushed tapioca or taro, wrapped in leaves and boiled)

   Usage

   Sweetened crushed tapioca or taro wrapped in leaves and boiled. Made from tapioca (diokang) or taro (kukau); the leaf wrapper is the defining step. The verb is mengelbakl

4. blsiich

   Blsiich (pounded taro, i.e. poi)

   Usage

   Poi; pounded taro. The spelling is blsiich, with the pronunciation /belsiich/ also given (third-person possessive belsichel). The example Errang, diak el ko er a sebechem remusech a belsiich e domengur? ("Hey, could you pound the taro? Then we can eat") shows that it is a staple made by pounding at home

5. basabasang

   Basabasang (a soup of rice water and coconut milk)

   Usage

   Kind of soup; rice water with coconut milk, with the pronunciation also noted as /basbasang. A post-rice dish, one of the Palauan soups built on coconut milk (disech)

6. sabao

   Sabao (soup)

   Usage

   The general word for soup, also spelled sabau. The pattern of naming the ingredient after it: sabau el babii (pork soup), sabau el mais (corn soup), sabau el tuu (banana soup). Note the synonym sub, borrowed from English (Ng soak el menga a sub el malk. = "I like to have some chicken soup"); both are heard

7. cheluomel

   Cheluomel (fish wrapped in leaves or betel-nut fibre and baked)

   Usage

   Fish wrapped in leaves or betel nut fiber and baked. The wrapping fiber is keai (the coarse fiber of the betel nut palm, used for rain gear and food wrapping). The verb is mengeluomel / menguum (to wrap in leaves or betel nut fiber and bake), and it is one of the odoim (side dishes eaten with the staple).

8. cheliotel

   Cheliotel (a dish cooked with coconut milk)

   Usage

   Food to which coconut milk has been added; food containing squeezed coconut milk. It is not one particular dish but a category by cooking method, useful on a menu or in a kitchen for asking whether something has coconut milk. Coconut milk is disech, and the squeezing action is menguit

9. mellolau

   Mellolau (caramelised coconut milk)

   Usage

   Caramelized coconut milk. It is coconut milk (disech) boiled down, served with sweet dishes

10. ilaot

    Ilaot (syrup boiled down from coconut sap)

    Usage

    Coconut syrup (made by boiling chemadech = coconut sap); nectar; any sweet liquid. It is made by boiling sap taken from the flower cluster, not from the nut. "Honey" is expressed with the phrase ilotel a chilakngil, so this word serves for sweet liquids in general

11. odoim

    Odoim (the non-starch side of a meal — meat, fish and the like)

    Usage

    Non-starchy food (e.g., meat, fish, sometimes papaya, coconut, eggs) eaten to complement ongraol (starchy food). A Palauan meal is counted as "staple (ongraol) + side dish (odoim)", and the example Ke imakl a ongraol, odoim a kliou. ("Separate the staple, the side dish and the dessert") shows this three-way division as it is. A basic word for explaining what you are eating

12. ongraol

    Ongraol (the starchy staple — taro, tapioca, rice)

    Usage

    Starch; starchy food. It is the staple side that pairs with odoim (side dishes), and the example A ngiklel a ongraol a meringel el ureor. ("Cooking the staple is hard work") shows it is an everyday word. Note: the possessed forms can also be used as a swear word, so they may be avoided in polite conversation. Do not use the possessed form ("someone's staple"); use ongraol bare

13. kliou

    Kliou (dessert — the sweet dish prepared for guests)

    Usage

    Sweet food or dessert (usually prepared especially for guests). The implication of "prepared especially for guests" is the key to this word. The order frame is Ng ngara soam el kliou? ("What would you like for dessert?"). The possessed form is kliungel. Note: a second sense is "a favorite child (e.g. the youngest)"

14. sasimi

    Sasimi (sashimi — raw fish)

    Usage

    Sashimi; raw fish. Borrowed from Japanese "sashimi", but the Palauan spelling is sasimi (s, not sh), so the Japanese romanization sashimi should not be used as is. "To eat sashimi" is the intransitive verb ousasimi. Fish is ngikel

    Grammar Note

    Palauan carries a large layer of Japanese loanwords from the Japanese administration (skoki "aeroplane", daiziob "all right"). In food and drink these are sasimi, bento, kohi (coffee) and meromi (liquor) — all respelled to Palauan orthography rather than kept in Japanese romanisation

15. bento

    Bento (a lunchbox; food eaten away from home)

    Usage

    Lunchbox; food eaten away from home. Borrowed from Japanese. It covers the meal as well as the box, so it fits a packed lunch taken onto a boat or the box handed out on a Rock Islands tour. The third-person possessive is bentelengel

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