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🌍 Country of the Week · A Spin the Globe Teacher's Guide
Cook Islands
Cook IslandsOceania · This week's dish comes from Rarotonga
About Cook Islands
Cook Islands cuisine is Polynesian, raw fish marinated in coconut cream (ika mata), taro, and the earth-oven umukai feast. The lagoon and the coconut palm define an island table of fish and root crops.
The order matters in ika mata: the fish is cured in citrus first and only then dressed in coconut cream, because doing it the other way round leaves the fish raw under a coating. The traditional fish is maroro, the flying fish, caught at night by boats carrying bright lights, and the coconut cream is grated and squeezed fresh rather than opened from a tin.
An umukai is the whole occasion rather than the oven. Stones are heated in a pit, food wrapped in leaves is layered over them, and the pit is covered and left for hours while everyone waits; taro, breadfruit, pork and chicken come out together. Rukau, taro leaves cooked in coconut cream, is the green that goes with it.
The wider picture: Island kitchens where coconut and the sea rule.
This week's dish: Ika Mata
Raw fish cured in lime and bathed in fresh coconut cream with cucumber, tomato, and spring onion.
Serves 4 · Prep 25 min · Cook 0 min · Difficulty: easy
See the full recipe: ingredients, steps and dietary swaps →
Grown-up jobs: any step that uses a hot stove, oven, boiling water, or a sharp knife is for a teacher or parent. Children can measure, mix, and assemble.
Discussion prompts
1. Find Cook Islands on a world map or globe. It sits in Oceania. Which oceans or neighboring countries does it touch, and roughly how far is it from where you live?
2. Ika Mata comes from Rarotonga, in Cook Islands. Read its ingredient list together. Which of those foods do you think are grown or raised nearby, and how might the country's climate and landscape explain that?
3. Read the short story behind Ika Mata. How have the people, trade routes, and history of Cook Islands shaped what ends up on the plate there?
4. Compare Ika Mata to a dish your own family cooks. What is similar, what is different, and what one question would you ask a family in Cook Islands about how they make and share it?
5. After you cook Ika Mata, add Cook Islands to a classroom map and give it a stamp. Write down one fact about its food or geography that you did not know this morning.
🌍 Spin the Globe · Geography through food · spintheglobeofficial.com/for-teachers