Mumu
Practical Action
banana leaves are used for the final covering to retain the heat. Baking is the more predominant
cooking process.
The temperature in the mumu can be as high as 250°C and because of the stone-food contact the
food also approaches this temperature. The high food temperature demands that the mumu is
uncovered within a short time to prevent over-cooking. It is unusual to leave the Mount Hagen mu
mu cooking overnight. A similar type of mumu was observed in Western Samoa where coconut cream
was used but no pit was dug.
Concerns
Mumu is part of the culture in PNG and the field study revealed that mumu is cherished by the
people. 'Mumurised' foods are reportedly rich in flavour and this makes them preferable to foods
from conventional ovens. Cooking foods in mumu seems convenient to the practitioners but it is
labour intensive. Concerns have been raised as to the fire hazard and environmental implications of
the mumu materials, such as banana leaves and firewood. However, the major concern is in the
likelihood of over or under cooking foods and post cooking contamination, as well as the migration of
materials from the stones to the foods.
Acknowledgement
The financial assistance of the International Foundation for Sciences is gratefully
acknowledged. Dr Sopade can be contacted at the Food Technology Section of the
Department of Applied Sciences at the University of Technology in Lae, Papua
New Guinea. Demonstrations of the types of mumu are documented in a video and
the author's laboratory is studying the temperature distributions in these types of
mumu and associated microbiological issues.
Similar cooking where the oven is closed with earth is practiced in Peru and is
called a pachamanka.
This article was originally published in Food Chain number 25, August 1999. Food
Chain, the international journal of small-scale food processing, was relaunched in
2011. http://practicalaction.org/food-chain-contents
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