The Megapode and Its Scrambled Eggs
BY AWAKE! CORRESPONDENT IN THE SOLOMON ISLANDS
ABOUT two hours by canoe out of Honiara, the capital of the Solomon Islands on Guadalcanal, is the island of Savo, famous for its active volcano and the megapode bird, also known as the Australian scrub fowl. The natives at times utilize hot rocks and jets of steam hissing from cracks in the ground to cook their food and to heat their water supply. The megapode bird also makes clever use of this natural resource.
Though considerably smaller than the common chicken, the megapode bird looks similar, with heavy body, short rounded wings and large, strong, four-toed feet. The bill is short and slightly curved downward. The megapode’s flight is fast but short-lived.
The megapode (meaning “large feet”) bird belongs to the same order of birds as the common chicken—Galliformes. It is an incubator bird that buries its eggs in piles of rotting vegetation to hatch them in constant 90-degree-Fahrenheit [32°C] heat. On this island the megapodes have a different incubator. What could be better than the volcanically heated sand on the beaches of Savo?
Acres of flat, level beach have been carefully fenced off by the natives with a wall of strong palm leaves. These are the megapode “fields.” Inside, the area resembles a carefully planted orchard. Small trees are set in orderly rows, apparently to provide a more reassuring environment for the visiting birds. Over this whole area, the sand is pitted with small craters about two feet [60 cm] in diameter, evidence of the visits at dawn and dusk by these strange wild birds that come to dig a narrow hole as much as three feet [90 cm] deep in which to lay and bury their eggs.
And what eggs! They average from three [8 cm] to three and a half inches [9 cm] long and about two and a half inches [6 cm] in diameter, an amazing size for such a small bird. Upon hatching, the fully feathered chick digs its way to the surface and runs away on its own. Within 24 hours it can fly.
Each day the villagers come down to the “fields” to dig up the eggs, which seem to be a major part of the islanders’ staple diet. It is amazing how they prepare their light, fluffy scrambled eggs. The megapode eggs are skillfully cracked open on the pointed shaft of a section of green bamboo stem and then poured into the stem’s hollow interior. The bamboo stem, now full of eggs, is carefully laid at a 45-degree angle in the hot embers of the cooking fire. Soon the eggs are bubbling away and mixing with the juices from the hot green bamboo. When ready, the bamboo is split open, and one has sausage-shaped scrambled eggs with a unique delightful taste. Come to the Solomon Islands, and try it sometime!